Ione Sala: "I hope your worldview doesn't disintegrate in another week after Keltham proves using cold, absolute, indisputable Law that the objective awesomeness of an afterlife is determined by its number of books."
Carissa Sevar: "Hell probably has more books than other places since it has more slaves to make them."
Ione Sala: "Doesn't count if they're all copies of the same book. Writing new books is a bit harder to do with slaves..."
"...I suppose your vision of your Hell layer actually is one where the slaves write new books, isn't it."
Carissa Sevar: "If it's valuable, then I think it ought to be possible to have my slaves do it! And writing books is obviously valuable!"
Ione Sala: "I sincerely and unironically wish you good luck with that."
Project Lawful: PL-timestamp: Day 19 (15) / Morning
lintamande: The Lady Eulàlia Avaricia de Seguer is, unlike the rest of the horde she is being inducted with, not excessively impressed at mentions of Her Infernal Majesty, and is in fact fairly judgmental of anyone who brings Her Infernal Majesty up to make a point; it's classless, the behavior of people who have had exactly one encounter with real power in their lives.
That said, she hasn't met Her Infernal Majesty, and is not under the impression it'd be good for her, and she is on her best behavior. That means she has been exceedingly patient with the power-drunk teenager who wants to help her reify her backstory to make sense in alter-Cheliax, and brought no servants except for her familiar, a chinchilla named Ira.
And good sense means she hasn't asked any of her growing list of questions. In particular, she'd kill several of her siblings for an answer to why, precisely, the Chosen of Asmodeus is named such, and in what sense Asmodeus chose her, but you can't just ask that. And she'd kill a lot more people than that for an actual working understanding of Keltham, the center of this whole thing, who everyone seems to regard as some kind of appalling hybrid between a paladin and an uncontrollable natural disaster. But she suspects already that Project Lawful does not have one, and if there's to be one she'll have to develop it herself.
Which shouldn't be hard. The power-drunk teenager was impressed that the Lady de Seguer was competent to fake any sexual reaction she felt like, and her bluff is easily much better than anyone else's here. The plan for that is apparently swords of glibness, for some reason, which sounds like a plan made by a wizard.
All this to say, she's splendidly dressed and very much looking forward to meeting Keltham, and she's tolerating the food in the breakfast-hall for it, even though it's not very good food and she has a Ring of Sustenance.
Keltham: "I see we've got some new faces this morning! Hi, I'm Keltham, I'm not from around here, didn't grow up around faces like yours, and it's probably going to take me upwards of a week to learn faces and names. After I'm done talking, please use Prestidigation to alter the color of a trace over your clothing to read out your name in Taldane. Somebody will get you actual paper within an hour so you don't have to keep doing that. Carissa, you're in charge of making that happen on take two if it ends up not happening the first time."
"Welcome to Project Lawful! I don't know if you've reviewed the section of transcript explaining why that's a terrible name, or at least, explaining that to the extent it can be explained without additional math not yet covered, but rest assured that the terrible name wasn't my idea."
"Project Lawful, or just the Project for short around here since we only have the one, is an endeavor to bring the knowledge of my homeworld of dath ilan to Golarion, so that Golarion can have the sort of nice things we had in dath ilan. Even nicer things, once you get going, nicer things and faster, because dath ilan didn't have magic and had to do everything the hard way. Here when you've got no idea which metal is 'vanadium' and no particularly bright ideas for finding out, you just go 'flush this down the toilet, I'm gonna try Prestidigitating element-20 to act like element-23 and see if that works for catalyzing the production of sulfurious acid'. That's part of my project to drop the cost of spellsilver by a factor of ten. There were originally some ideas for dropping the cost of spellsilver by a factor of two, but I explained I'd only settle for that if I absolutely had to, because just halving the cost of spellsilver is probably not enough to achieve takeoff on the process of building enough intelligence headbands that more people can be wizards and make more intelligence headbands until all of Golarion has +6 Intelligence, which is approximately what it would take to get Intelligence, alone, into the vicinity of dath ilan's mental stats. I suspect we had more going for us than just Intelligence, but getting the average enhanced Intelligence up to 16 would be a start."
"By the way, I hope none of you are the sort who have always really wanted to see an explosion of boiling acid from up close, because Ione was complaining really loudly after the last one, yesterday, and I think she wants that to not happen again even if we have Resist Energy (Acid) and Resist Energy (Fire), so you might've missed your only chance there."
"Now, I know the question on all of your minds. 'But Keltham,' you're thinking, 'we're all Evil here, and as much fun as it might be to watch explosions of boiling acid from up close, we're not going to do that just to bring intelligence headbands to all of Golarion, we'd like to become incredibly rich.' I don't know actually if this part has already been explained to you here, but the basic idea is that the Project forms a business, the business is one of which you can all own shares that vest over time if you do your work well, your share ends up being something like a thousandth of the Project or twice that if you're an unusually valuable employee, then, if our schemes all work out, the Project ends up being worth a billion gold pieces and you end up worth a million gold out of that. That's how things are done in dath ilan. Don't rely on that as if it were wealth already in your possession, is another common wisdom out of dath ilan. In your case, you haven't even been hired yet."
Keltham: "Whether you get hired - and at what salary, and at what share of the Project to be earned - will depend on your ability to master Law, the basis of all my knowledge out of dath ilan."
lintamande: The new faces are attentive; they've Prestidigitated their nametags. That beautiful woman over there has 'Lady Eulàlia Avaricia de Seguer' on her deep blue silk dress in what looks like gold embroidered thread. That woman over there with a distinctly nonhuman bone structure and weird skin coloration has 'Sibilla'.
Keltham: A dath ilani audience would have smiled at some point, or looked horrified, or something... right, apparently he'll have to repeat the process of training the newcomers out of that form of Chelish dignity wherein everybody has a fixed expression of attentiveness in order to eliminate all feedback for teachers and managers.
lintamande: The Lady Avaricia's snap impression of Keltham is that he has absolutely no class at all, and that if he can't tell her apart from everyone else then she's going to get a hair appointment this afternoon and be blonde tomorrow. It should not be hard to tell her apart from other people.
Keltham: "The Law is what gives an ilani their power. The structure used by all thought, all living cognition. It's everywhere outside you and inside you. It binds the galaxy together, you could say, in the form of the Law of gravity..."
"That was a dumb introduction. Sorry, I'm improvising here. Rollback, retry."
"You know how to use math to describe the mechanics of hanging spells, the balances of forces that go as the inverse-square, the inverse-cube, that oscillate with a frequency. Intelligent people, who are good at math, go become wizards, since that's the high-paying profession that uses math."
"Math can, in fact, be used for more than magic. A lot more."
"Math, it turns out, can be used to describe how to think. And thinking better gives you a deeper power over reality than any spell could. It's like a Wish spell, in a way, except for the part where it actually works and does what you want, if your Art is strong and your Way is true."
"By and large, you don't learn to hang spells by doing explicit calculations while you're in the middle of hanging them. There usually is not time, your hands are busy so you can't use a paper scratchpad. By working paper problems separately from the actual process of hanging your spells, however, you develop an intuition for where to put the balance between an inverse-cube force and an inverse-square force, that an inverse-cube repulsion and an inverse-square attraction will almost always have a balancing point, while an inverse-cube attraction and an inverse-square repulsion is unstable."
"Most of the process that produces a higher level of mental skill in an average INT-17 dath ilani than in an average INT-17 Golarionite is not that the dath ilani is constantly doing explicit calculations with numbers. It's that they have, in offline training, usually as a young child, worked through many toy examples of thought processes slowly enough that they can see what the numbers would be for those, how the Law would apply, and in that process somewhat corrected their thoughts towards the shape of Law."
Keltham: "Then, from Lawful thinking, comes the skill to uncover the Laws of the outer world. I am trying to apply such of that Law as I merely remember to the problem of dropping the cost of spellsilver production by a factor of 10. But my memory is very incomplete, and in some cases will be wrong, and there are important things that I never learned at all."
"I have some ideas about how to cheaply produce huge quantities of high-purity sulfurious acid, as they call 'sulfuric acid' around here, because it's a precursor to an incredibly large number of industrial processes. Civilization went through hundreds of millions of tons of the stuff every year. That's not an exaggeration, our actual production figure was 300 million tons per year, if I'm recalling it correctly and converting units correctly, or a third of a ton per year per person. So there are stories out of dath ilan in which somebody like me ends up on an alien planet somehow and then has to figure out how to produce a lot of acid, basically the exact situation I am now in, and the stories go into detail on exactly how to do that, even if you don't have any magic."
"Even so, I don't remember a lot of key points there. And when it comes to other things, what I have are not blueprints but hints."
"Hints can be worth an awful lot, in this business, compared to striking out completely blindly. Hints can save you incredible amounts of time if you could've otherwise gotten to the same place all on your own without the hint."
"Somebody who would never get the answer on their own, however, is probably not going to get it even with the hint."
"So you need to learn to be the sorts of people who could wield Law-inspired and Law-reshaped thought and no small amount of actual numerical calculation, to experiment and discover the Law of the world. And then further wield Law-inspired thought to apply the Law of the world to engineer new processes, new technology. Ones not exactly like the processes out of dath ilan. Golarion processes will use magic for a shortcut, where that's possible and economically feasible."
Keltham: "We are improvising everything here, improvising it rather rapidly. My teachings on Law are not optimal for you, they are how I remember being taught when I was young, as soon as I was old enough to understand, which is rather younger than things begin in Golarion. My Law, I now suspect, was taught to me in a very careful way so as not to damage me in certain ways. And I cannot remember all the cautions, I cannot reproduce the exact training, and if I could remember it exactly it would still be a training input adapted only to me, to Keltham, and the outputs I had previously output."
"When Manohar dropped an artifact headband on Asmodia for a couple of hours, she deduced an enormous amount of Law from hints I'd previously given the class, started seeing the world in a whole new way, and then, apparently - we're still not sure if this was really related to the Law epiphanies - got into a state where she could no longer be really sane without a +6 Wisdom headband, which she is still currently wearing."
"Being here is not safe. It is not impossible that we will do some form of damage to you that makes you no longer able to hold yourself together in Golarion, and leaves you nowhere to go but Hell. It is not impossible we'll do some form of damage to you that Hell doesn't currently know how to fix, and we'll have to figure out some way to stop time for you and suspend you, turning you temporarily into a statue for example, until the future Civilization of Golarion can figure out how to cure you."
"I was told you'd already be told that. If not, or if it wasn't told to you fully, let me know, and I'll see about having that process revised in the future. It's too late for you to back out of being part of the Project's secrecy bubble within Cheliax, you cannot go back to anything that isn't under heavy Security; but it is not too late for you to decide that you don't want to risk your mental integrity."
"I am not going to ask you to decide that now in front of everyone; if that's so, you can let me know in private."
Keltham: "Then there's all the weird shit. Ione, our Nethysian Safety Officer, has advised me that I probably should not go into the really weird shit for now. Some of the very weirdest shit is looking hopefully like it might have been much narrower in scope than I previously thought."
"If, however, any of you are the Demon Lord Nocticula in disguise, we may have to revisit the question of whether it was in fact weird shit of somewhat broader scope. Yes, we're on to you, Nocticula, no, that wasn't anything you could possibly have prevented, it was just weird shit, sorry."
lintamande: These people are too disciplined to look wildly at each other trying to figure out whether anyone is the Demon Lord Nocticula! They will rigidly not do that! Keltham's lecture is producing rapid whiplash between excitement and terror; the characterization of him as a cross between a paladin and a hurricane is starting to make more sense.
Lady Avaricia feels that this place isn't classy enough for Nocticula, though it's entirely possibly she'll show up once they fix that.
Ione Sala: "Nethysian advisory. Keltham, most of these people are now trying to figure out which of them is Nocticula in disguise, and this is not, in fact, a very nice thing to be trying to figure out."
Keltham: "Ah. Yes. Sorry. That scenario isn't very likely. I've tried to make several predictions like that before, and none of the ones as far-fetched as the Nocticula scenario have come true - all the predictions that did come true were things that arguably could've happened anyways. Call it something like 2% probability - meaning the sort of thing that would happen 1 out of 50 times, if transcripts or Asmodia haven't covered that for you."
Ione Sala: "Nethysian advisory. They're still pretty worried about a 2% probability when it comes to something like one of them secretly being the Demon Lord Nocticula."
Keltham: "Fair, but us running into something with overpowering Splendour has been heavily foreshadowed at this point and I'm not that sure the tropes aren't real... sorry, that's more weird shit I wasn't supposed to go into."
"Anyways. Welcome to Project Lawful. If you're worried about whether it's always going to be like this around here, the answer is: Yes. Yes, it is. I'm trying to be upfront about that before you actually go deciding to work for me."
"Any questions?"
lintamande: "Are we allowed to know which of the Project Lawful rumors are true," says Xanthippe Abelló, who was previously at the front in Nidal and has Heard Some Project Lawful rumors, and gotten Asmodia's approval for the alter-Cheliax existence of fully a third of them.
Keltham: "First of all, probably yes."
"Second of all, what rumors?"
lintamande: Xanthippe takes a deep breath and starts rattling them off.
"If you join Project Lawful you can offer to sell your soul for a Wish and the devil'll tell you that's unfair in their favor.
Asmodeus has declared that the greatest of Project Lawful will be a new archduke of a new layer of Hell.
Project Lawful participated in the fight with Zon Kuthon.
Project Lawful is a Kuthite project that escaped to Cheliax.
Project Lawful killed Aroden.
Project Lawful girls are all mystic theurges like Nefreti Clepati.
Project Lawful is led by a secret ninth-circle wizard who was pretending to be a third-circle unit wizard at the Worldwound.
Project Lawful runs on enchanted cake that makes you a sorcerer."
Keltham: "Maillol and I are going to have some words about this."
"So our current model is that Nidal's attack on Project Lawful kicked off the god-war that got Zon Kuthon sealed. Furthermore, our current model is that my god, Asmodeus, Nethys, and Cayden Cailean, were aware that attack was coming, and in fact deliberately triggered that attack, with timing appropriate to get me out of the worst harm's way. We did not participate significantly in the godwar itself, and are not ready to support the Nidal fight."
"I don't know what a 'mystic theurge' is."
"If hypothetically Carissa were secretly a ninth-circle wizard, and I knew this fact, she would presumably have good reasons to keep it secret, and I wouldn't be able to tell you about it, so I can't confirm or deny that one."
"We are not a Kuthite project that escaped to Cheliax."
"The rest of these are not only false, but cause me to wonder at the unLawfulness of the mental processes that must have first produced them and then considered them plausible enough to propagate. What with, for example, Aroden having died one hundred years ago if I'm not mistaken, Asmodeus being extremely limited in comms bandwidth, Wishes potentially producing flaming craters the size of Teleport radiuses, and how would they even know about the cake - oh, the experiments in the Palace in Egorian, right."
"...I have to say, I am incredibly not impressed with Chelish Security here."
Lady Eulàlia Avaricia de Seguer: "I could add to that list of rumors, if for some baffling reason that's productive," says Lady Avaricia, who thinks that sharing rumors is incredibly not classy and does not want anyone in the room confused about the fact she thinks so. "I assumed it was deliberate disinformation for idiots, because other countries are desperate to find out what Project Lawful is all about."
Keltham: "You know, there's a version of that policy which would make sense, but that's even worse news because it implies that there was more accurate info in the process of escaping and which they needed to bury. Including something specifically about the cake that they needed to bury." Though why you'd target that disinfo at idiots...
"I'll look into it later. Not your job to worry about."
"Other questions?"
lintamande: No other questions!! They've been told Keltham likes it when you ask questions but not encouraged all that hard; he wouldn't expect them to be coming pre-prepared.
Asmodia: (Fuck, now they need to know what actual rumor about cake was escaping that alterCheliax thought necessary to bury. Asmodia should have seen that one coming, and admits fault in it.)
Keltham: All right, back to breakfast then!
Keltham himself shall sit down with Carissa; they need to plan out what the process looks like of getting the newcomers up to speed. If he was a real CEO he would have already planned that out, and been free to mingle with the newcomers as would make them feel more welcome. Well, he's not a real anything except a real Keltham, didn't already plan that out, and now needs to plan it before he can figure out how to schedule the rest of the day. His brain is a bit tired for doing more ACID.
Carissa Sevar: "It was a really impressive amount of acid. You could have us, led by Asmodia, give all the introductory lectures, while you watch and correct anything we're missing? That seems restful and would also give you a sense of how thoroughly we've grasped things. Alternatively you could throw them in the deep end, continue lecturing on Utility, see where they get confused."
Keltham: Message to Asmodia (CC: Carissa): Asmodia, what'd you already teach them yesterday?
Asmodia: Reply: Law of Probability only, so far. I'm planning to burn any off-hours I and they can spare, on catching them up to anything I can figure out how to teach, especially while you're working on other things. In hopes that you will recognize all the tremendous value I am generating, even compared to the other tier-1s, and award me a greater share of the Project.
Keltham: Message: You understand that I make no further promises there and that it's not a matter of just a couple of weeks of working, right? Even at the high-leverage start. I am paying relatively generously and neither you nor Ione get to have everything you want just because you asked.
Asmodia: Reply: I know and understand. Just as I know and understand that if I actually do end up deserving a greater reward, Keltham out of dath ilan will make sure I get it. If I'm not rewarded, it means I was wrong, not that he was.
Keltham: ...okay.
Message: I'll do my best to live up to that.
Asmodia: It occurs to Asmodia only after she has spoken that - well, she's not sure it's not progress on corrupting Keltham, what just happened? Him being encouraged to hold all power in his own hands, to be the only decider of who deserves what, and right in every argument about that? But it... didn't feel quite like progress, somehow, on corrupting him.
Maybe bad things happen when a fake Asmodia speaks from her heart.
Hopefully not too much damage was done. Asmodia knows what it is like, now, to have a Plan to protect, and she wouldn't want to hurt Sevar's own Plan.
Carissa Sevar: "Should we go ask Maillol pointed questions now, or are you figuring it's too late for that to help and it might as well wait?"
Keltham: "Might as well wait, yeah. Not much I can do about it now."
"Going back to topic - dath ilani kids learn from older kids, and solidify their own understanding by teaching younger kids. It's thought that the natural processes of heredity-optimization that produced humanity would have, in some sense, designed younger kids mainly to learn from older kids. Though the things being taught were a lot less complicated then."
"You're not kids, but the part where you can solidify your own understanding by teaching others... seems like it should probably still hold? So, yeah, I guess, you teach the new candidates, I step in as needed. Wouldn't be surprised if I was stepping in a lot."
"Alternatively, I could launch straight into 'Science', as the procedures for uncovering the Laws of the world are called out of dath ilan, if Asmodia managed to get enough basic Probability into them that they can handle the math for that."
Carissa Sevar: "That admittedly sounds much more interesting than getting the new people up to speed." And important for the Conspiracy.
Keltham: "Yeah, but we'd have to abort if they weren't able to handle the Probability parts..."
"Well, I suppose that means we can just try them on Science and see if they can, in fact, handle the Probability parts, and if not, abort and reschedule. After all, as the saying goes, why pass up the path of possible greatest reward based on a mere prediction of failure, when you can quickly and cheaply test that?"
"...yeah, I'm gonna be using Communal Share Language (Baseline) on them. Now that I'm occasionally speaking Baseline again, I'm reminded how much the long message length of snappy dath ilani proverbs in Taldane makes my head hurt."
Carissa Sevar: "I have a feeling you'll manage to give them an interesting and memorable first day."
Project Lawful: PL-timestamp: Day 19 (15) / Morning Lectures