lintamande: " - well, I would have to say that it seems to me that murdering people is not, especially, dealing fairly with them. And we are in fact instructed not to war except in self-defense. It's something of a special case, since under what circumstances a people will go to war is important to be able to predict about them, if you want to avoid wars."

Keltham: "That's because it's contrary to Abadar's nature to threaten people into working with you.  Or eliminate options they had that benefited you less, in order to steer them onto a course that benefits you more, if they're then foolish enough to take their nearsightedly-self-interested-act in response to your doing that.  People from Golarion can't tell the difference between glassing Cheliax as threat, and glassing Cheliax as a thing you decided to do without that being an attempt to force them into anything, so Abadar just tells you not to do all of it."

"I can tell the difference.  Hence the specification about my just destroying the country without warning."

lintamande: "I do not think that Abadar would maintain a cleric relationship with someone who goes around committing mass murders. I think of that as an extension of the commitment to - fair trading - and I'm unsure, if there's some way that mass murders are fair trading, about whether it'd apply, but -

- but it seems to me that it's really obviously not dealing fairly with someone to annihilate them for your own purposes."

Keltham: "Huh.  Not as I understand the logic of Coordination, they'd just be paving stones you were stepping on instead of agents you were coordinating with at all."

"Well, either there's more to Abadar than I understood myself, or less to him than you think.  Abadar paid Asmodeus to try to have me teach Osirion, which, again, I intend to do, but that payment to Asmodeus would be expected to result in some number of people going to Hell, which seems noticeably worse than just killing somebody for your own purposes."

lintamande: "I don't.... think so? There's a difference between selling knives, which someone could then on their own go use to stab an innocent person for profit, and stabbing innocent people for your own gain yourself. And I think it is - profoundly not in the nature of Abadar - to treat any being as a paving stone rather than an agent that can be traded with in its own right."

Keltham: "You are drawing some distinction that is not in the math I know.  If I sold Cheliax a weapon that I expected them to use to glass Lastwall, I would be treating Lastwall as a paving stone, because if I actually cared I obviously wouldn't sell Cheliax the weapon."

"I'm not seeing how to reconcile your view with Abadar trading with Asmodeus.  Abadar, probably, expected there to be more fair trading, in the end, than if Abadar hadn't made that bargain, but it also tossed some number of expected people into Hell, and they wouldn't get any of the gains from the trade either.  That seems consistent only with the view of Abadar sometimes doing things that benefit Abadar's interests and squash mortals, providing that Abadar isn't coordinating with the mortals who got squashed.  Abadar is still viewing those mortals as agents that can trade with each other, and whose fair trade he values even when it's not with him.  But Abadar's not trading with those mortals unfairly, in the course of giving Asmodeus the resources to damn them, he's trading with Asmodeus."

lintamande: "Ensuring you didn't get mind-controlled very much reduces the number of beings in Hell, compared to if Abadar had not traded with Asmodeus at all!"

Keltham: "Doubt either of those gods knew that at the time.  Otherwise, Abadar sure shit all over Asmodeus in the course of paying Asmodeus way less than Abadar putatively knew I was worth to Asmodeus."

lintamande: " - well, yes! Because that's how Asmodeus likes to conduct trades!"

Keltham: "If Abadar had that kind of asymmetrical information advantage he would have paid to deliver me directly to Osirion -"

"Sorry, I forgot I was in a civilized country.  It sounds like a Commune could maybe settle this question, do you want to bet on it in advance of asking?"

lintamande: "Sure, but we'll have to figure out a specification. I doubt Abadar knew exactly how valuable you were, but I imagine He knew much more than He let on in negotiating with Asmodeus, because Asmodeus prefers negotiations where the parties keep some secrets."

Keltham: "Did Abadar expect that the trade he was making with Asmodeus would result in fewer mortals going to Hell... no, there could've been some offset where the Abyss loses a lot and Hell gains a little.  Did Abadar expect fewer mortals going to all Evil afterlives... no, Abadar might've expected population growth.  I'd ask about net injury to all mortal interests, but I don't expect Abadar to have a clear definition of that, unless Abadar can read what I really mean out of my mind?"

lintamande: "I doubt Abadar has a clear definition of that. You could ask, for a random citizen of Golarion, whether Abadar thinks they'd have paid Him to make or not make that deal, with the information Abadar had at the time? But I don't know if He'll know the answer to that either."

Keltham: "Did Abadar expect a higher percentage of all mortals going to Evil afterlives as a result of making that trade with Asmodeus, even if it was only a very small fraction, like if Asmodeus would make a few more first-circle clerics that way."

lintamande: " - I mean, I'd expect it to also matter a great deal to Abadar why the mortals went to Evil afterlives. If it's because Asmodeus invented some new Evil activity which mortals enjoy so much they're willing to knowingly and with full information be damned about it, then - fine?"

Keltham: "And what percentage of the people in Evil afterlives are there for reasons like that, where they got a fair share of gains, sufficient to offset their real loss from being tortured forever?"

lintamande: "I don't know. I'd imagine not very many of them, but people do surprise me with their willingness to do things they'll be judged Evil for without really all that much reason as I see it. I imagine from Abadar's perspective it's an even harder question to answer."

Keltham: "In hypothetical dath ilan minus 6 Intelligence points, the vast majority of people doing Evil things and going to Evil afterlives about that, are doing that because they are nearsighted and stupid.  Is it very different in Golarion, because of masochists, submissives, people who would enjoy Hell much more than dath ilani would?"

lintamande: " - no, it's because they're nearsighted and stupid, I think, for the most part. I am not sure that Abadar thinks that their informed trades don't count if their reason is 'they're nearsighted and stupid' - after all, from His perspective, we all are."

Keltham: "Then I cannot, in the next six seconds, figure out how to factor that into a bet on whether Abadar expected a higher total fraction of mortal beings in Evil afterlives as a result of executing that trade with Asmodeus.  We could ask whether Abadar's payment to Asmodeus came with any specifications that Asmodeus not use it to the net disadvantage of mortals."

lintamande: "Fair. I don't particularly expect He did that, though I suppose if it were cheap to ask it'd be a strong sign of - whatever you're looking for."

Keltham: "I am trying to figure out whether Abadar cares, and whether Abadar sometimes in the service of his own interests trades with Asmodeus in a way that causes more mortals to end up as paving stones in Hell."

"Do you have any test you do expect to turn up positive, as a strong sign about that?"

lintamande: "Setting aside that I think in Hell mortals mostly turn into devils not paving stones, it seems unlikely that is never a consequence of trades Abadar makes - including trades He makes with many many entities other than Asmodeus. Presumably sometimes He clerics someone who is going to start a hugely prosperous trading empire but whose co-founder is going to buy a lot of slaves as a result or something. But as the world gets richer, there'll be much less of that, and eventually mortals will be rich enough to just get what we want - or at least that's presumably the hope.

You could ask Abadar whether He thinks mortals, when we're richer and more knowledgeable, will want to trade with Him more or less?"

Keltham: "That's not the key question from my standpoint."

"I am trying to determine - if I owe Abadar - what I would owe a dispassionate alien thing that traded with Hell's god for exactly as much protection as would ensure the mortal got to say a few things to Osirion eventually, or if I owe Abadar - at least a little of what I would owe to a friend -"

"This conversation has gone beyond the original infohazard, I note, and I free you to say whatever of this in your own best judgment should be said to Osirion."

lintamande: "I don't know what it's like to be Abadar. He keeps trying to tell us, and not really succeeding. I suppose that I think - the fact He keeps trying - the fact He keeps the things we make with our hands - suggests, to me, that whatever it's like to be Abadar, it's not at all indifferent about whether humans end up getting to grow up and be rich."

Keltham: "Noted."

Keltham: "I admit to being surprised that - just trading honestly yourself is enough to be a cleric of Abadar?  I would've expected that you had to consider yourself aligned with Abadar's interests at least a little."

lintamande: "I think - Abadar's interests are interests almost every human shares. He wants the world and the people in it to be prosperous, He wants people to have longer lives so they learn more and are more informed, He wants there to be courts of law, so that the resolution of disputes is predictable and not violent. It is hard for me to imagine a person who shares little to nothing of what Abadar wants but still deals fairly."

Keltham: "I think you are sliding at least a little into arguing Abadar's case, and what I need to know here are the mechanics of staying a cleric."

lintamande: Shrug. "It is hard for me to distinguish between 'you need not be aligned with Abadar' and 'you need to be slightly aligned with Abadar but in a way humans near-inevitably are'."

Keltham: "There isn't abstract knowledge about this because of how it works for other clerics?"

lintamande: "Clerics definitely have to be at least somewhat aligned with their god! The question is whether trading fairly counts as being sufficiently aligned with Abadar."

Keltham: "I hope it does not work that way, then, because it would be horrifying that Abadar can't just make most people clerics, unless he can and that's how you know."

lintamande: " - Abadar can't make most people clerics and most people don't in fact value trading fairly even with entities that can't stand up for themselves. - also you do have to be within an alignment step of Him, I assume you know that."

Keltham: "I've been told, but I'm definitely not going to shape my life based on what some ancient alien arbitrarily defined as 'Lawful' or 'Chaotic' or whatever, and if that breaks my connection to Abadar then too bad."

lintamande: " - that's understandable and I wouldn't expect you to do differently, I just didn't want you to be taken by surprise. Anyway, I think people who want to trade fairly, with everyone, even entities that you could just give orders, even entities that are too stupid to understand the deal, are very rare, and Abadar usually clerics them."

Keltham: "It shouldn't have been that rare, is what I'd like to say, and yet now I'm thinking about how maybe you also get kicked out of that category if you - give orders, to somebody who you could just give orders, because fewer children end up in Hell that way.  I wouldn't break an oath, wouldn't break a compact, for that reason, because then all possibility of coordination falls apart, but - an unfair contract that doesn't send enough children to Hell?  I'm - not sure, any more, about - where I fall - on that -"

"Does it count for anything in Abadar's sight if you only deal unfairly with, things that deal unfairly with other people?  Only shit on somebody in a compact using asymmetrical information, if they're the sort of person who, threatened other people, kept a slave..."

lintamande: "That's a question where I'd want to reflect before giving you counsel, rather than giving the first answer that comes to mind.

I have some thoughts that would shape an answer, but don't constitute one.

Abadar does deal differently with Asmodeus than with Iomedae, but Asmodeus knows that, and I think that might be important.

I think that a person who gave themselves license to cheat others if the others were sufficiently badly behaved would end up deciding nearly everyone counted as badly behaved, because it was convenient for them to believe and they could find enough justification.

I think that dealing unfairly is a habit, and not a good one to get into.

I think that Abadar, if He wanted, could look at any mortal, including you or me, and see something that makes us objectively not an entity worth trading fairly with, but He doesn't, and I'm glad He doesn't."

Keltham: "I don't think he'd have been able to see anything like that about me when I arrived in Golarion.  Dath ilan, doesn't hurt people, like Golarion does, doesn't present them with choices like that, we don't set things up so people can benefit from being unfair."

"Now - I don't know."

"Maybe I should only be trading with Lawful Evil people who know to expect Asmodean contracts from me, so that this story can't force me to betray them like I got betrayed.  There would be a literary symmetry, if, after the first arc was about my getting betrayed, I got all set to guard against that happening to me again, only to find out, surprise, I've got to do something to betray Osirion after they were actually nice to me..."

lintamande: "I think that you are - damaging yourself, damaging your ability to accomplish your goals - by the way you're trying to force a conclusion about this, and you should probably give it a rest for a few months until you feel more grounded and less like you're in a story that is trying to orchestrate specific dilemmas. And I think that doing awful things to avoid being forced into doing awful things is a terrible, dumb plan."

Keltham: "Is teaching Osirion for free and not accepting any payment from non-Evil students, or maybe only taking money from my compact with Cheliax, and buying magic items and scrolls from - Razmiran, say, under advance warning that they should comport themselves as if trading with an Asmodean rather than an Abadaran - an awful thing on a level where I should not do that just to protect myself against having to betray a trading partner?"

lintamande: "....no? We will probably...track how much we would have paid you, to pay you if you later decide that this isn't actually achieving whatever result you hoped for."

Keltham: "I cannot physically stop you from doing that but I wish you wouldn't.  If I survive all this and stay in Golarion, I'll have enough money for myself, period, and I don't think Abadarans would spend excess money beyond that very differently from the sort of things I'd spend it on.  I mean, except in the sense I know some better investments, and if that's how it works out, you can hire me as an investment advisor at that time."

"But I think that, given the way this story has been playing out, you are not helping me achieve my goals by shortsightedly trying to set me up in an environment of - people trying to be nice to me.  You aren't seeing the - way things would be expected to play out, in the future, given how they've played out in the past, after I materialized in Golarion at a point in space and time that was clearly selected to set particular future events in motion."

"The more you set up a story situation where you are trying to be nice to Keltham, the more you are, under some possible ways this could be happening, potentially setting up a plot twist where you do not get what you hoped for about that."

lintamande: "If the only way Osirion could defeat Cheliax was to lie to you and treat you badly, then Osirion will lose to Cheliax, because it won't do that. It's not about being good to you producing some good result, it's about that being the way that every person should relate to every other, whatever it gets them."

Keltham: "I am not suggesting Osirion do that!  I am trying to avoid a situation where anybody ends up doing that by not having these sorts of expectations around for the story to break!"

lintamande: "I don't think that reasoning like you're in a story is a good idea even if you are. I think it's damaging and self-fulfilling, and there are many possible stories. But I'll feel better about it if you give yourself some time to start to recover from your experiences in Cheliax first."

Keltham: "Last story arc had an invisible clock ticking the entire time, when I was telling myself that I could check the remaining shreds of checkable Conspiracy probability later after I had more knowledge and was more acclimated to Golarion.  There are processes going on in the world right now, Cheliax snowballing on manufacturing headbands, it's not even a reasonable surprise if I get told afterwards that, sorry, actually every day mattered."

lintamande: "Yep, time matters for many of our going concerns. But also, you are worse than useless right now, so you should take your time even though time matters," Temos says flatly.

Keltham: A very reasonable interpretation of the evidence Keltham has given them.

"Your advice is noted.  Now if you'll excuse me, it has just occurred to me I need to go schedule a conversation, one that needs to happen literally as soon as possible to cut off an obvious Chelish path to victory."

"You are, again, released to discuss all of this conversation with Osirion, exercising your own judgment about how to treat anything potentially infohazardous."

lintamande: "...understood. Good luck, Keltham."

Keltham: Off he goes.

Keltham needs to talk to the highest-circle cleric of Iomedae that can potentially be obtained on short notice, possibly including by somebody Greater Teleporting to Lastwall or Mendev or wherever to get them.

lintamande: There's a small delegation here specifically to talk to him, but if he wants the highest-circle cleric that's...probably Queen Galfrey of Mendev. Who is probably going to be somewhat reluctant to come to Osirion, can this be done over a scry or anything?

Keltham: ...'Queen Galfrey' sounds like she might be an overly predictable info-target, if she's literally the highest-circle cleric.

How about if Keltham describes the basic situation to one Osirian in a position of authority who's pretty unlikely to be kidnapped for that information, and then they decide how to put him in touch with a slightly less predictable high-circle cleric of Iomedae, very quickly?

lintamande: Sure.

Keltham: Great.  Even if Abadar's bargain with Asmodeus still prevents Cheliax from kidnapping or Maledicting Keltham, which is, possibly, something else that should be asked about if it hasn't been asked already, there might be other world actors with an interest in not having Keltham destroy circles carved out of Cheliax.

Keltham needs to do his best to dump his guess about how to destroy circular sections of country, into an Iomedan cleric sworn not to use that info without permission from Keltham.  Unless Keltham is taken off the gameboard, by non-Iomedan forces, in which case Iomedae's adherents are free to do whatever they want with that info and are specifically encouraged to use it to destroy Cheliax if Cheliax makes trouble.

It should not be easy for adversaries to guess which cleric of Iomedae has this info.

lintamande: - the cleric of Abadar nods seriously, looks absolutely miserable, and says he can get a somewhat arbitrarily selected sixth circle cleric of Iomedae here in ten minutes, and that that's the kind of agreement a cleric of Iomedae would keep.

Keltham: ...can Keltham divide the knowledge into two portions, such that it's only dangerous when two oathsworn clerics combine the pieces?

It doesn't seem like the sort of thing you could reasonably do with the knowledge underlying - no, wait, he's being dumb.

"Please get me a book, any book, that wouldn't look at all out of place or unusual in that Iomedan cleric's home library, preferably without anybody else observing which book you took.  And having the cleric here in half an hour, instead of ten minutes, is fine, because I need to write things down anyways.  With very strong guarantees about nobody watching me write."

lintamande: Here's a leather-bound book about the First Crusade.

"For an absolute assurance no one is watch you or could get authorization to do so I will need to put a request to the pharaoh. I'll do that now."

Ruby Prince Khemet III: He will swear that no one is permitted to read over Keltham's shoulder, that He thinks He'd know if anyone could, and that scrying within the Dome is supposed to be impossible, plus they'll have Mage's Private Sanctum up which is also categorically sufficient against non-gods.

Keltham: He'll write down, one-time-pad encrypted and in Baseline, four guesses for Wish phrasings that will conjure antimatter, along with some half-assed calculations about how to adjust the numerical parameters to destroy different sizes of map circle, plus a lot of explanation about what the phrasings mean, the underlying equations implying the existence of antimatter and how to anchor the meaning of those terms in observable reality.  Once decrypted, you're going to want a wizard to understand that math, and you might be further helped by checking in with Ione Sala if nobody else around understands concepts like electrical charge and quantum spin already.

If that doesn't work, try squeezing a lot of hydrogen together, or conjuring it in tight proximity to itself.  Here's three guesses at a Wish phrasing that'll do that...

If that doesn't work, try conjuring a relativistic projectile, careful where it's aimed at, but pointing it towards the center of mass for Golarion seems like it should unambiguously point 'down'...

...Wish phrasing that steers an asteroid into Cheliax, where Keltham has tried to phrase the Wish to put upper bounds on the mass and the impact velocity, but it's not impossible that something like this is what went wrong with the Starstone impact, and Wishes do have a reputation for going wrong, so maybe consider this one something of a very last resort.  Probably still better than Cheliax taking over Golarion and becoming a factory for souls going to Hell, though.

lintamande: And sixth-circle cleric Koenraad Breker, of Lastwall, is urgently teleported to Osirion with a briefing that consists of 'the outsider who started the godwar wants you to talk with him about superweapons'. 

He has not in fact been told, at all, about the outsider who started the godwar, but that's all right, he can take things in stride.

Keltham: Hi.  Welcome to Keltham's life.  It is, by Golarion standards, a complicated one.

Yada yada extremely serious oaths please yo.

lintamande: He will read over Keltham's requested oath wording, contemplate it thoughtfully, ask if the text of the oath is itself to be a secret, pray on it for a few minutes...

lintamande: ....and swear to it.

Keltham: Right.  If you combine this book and this sheet of paper, using a code that does not get written down, but should be simple enough to memorize, you get ten different guesses by Keltham at a Wish phrasing that could destroy Cheliax, or more generally, an arbitrary circle drawn on a map.  They have adjustable parameters depending on how large a crater you want to create.

The sensible thing to do here, and what Cheliax should expect Keltham to do if they're modeling him almost correctly, would be to pull in a high-circle wizard trusted of Iomedae, who knew what there was to be known about Wish phrasings, and have them work with Keltham on adjusting these.

Keltham cannot do this because he is in the middle of a complicated situation that he has not in fact decrypted, he has suspicions he's trying to not think about too hard, and he was told in a vision from Iomedae that Cayden Cailean might possibly have had good reasons for destroying Iomedae's intelligence apparatus in Cheliax which implies that they might be dealing with information hazardous to Iomedae Herself.

Keltham's current plan is that he's going to have to find out what's usually known about Wish phrasings on his own without any help from Iomedan or Abadaran forces.  Afterwards he may hand over an improved set of Wish phrasings for destroying things.  Until then, they're going to need to take the information here and work out on their own how to adjust the phrasing, if it comes to that.  All this is to be understood as an emergency measure intended to prevent Cheliax from definitely winning immediately if somebody takes out Keltham permanently, and to make that Chelish victory be not a thing that is knowable to somebody predicting Keltham.

lintamande: ...understood. Wish phrasings he came up with himself almost definitely won't work but it does seem like they're a better starting point than nothing at all, and as an emergency measure they'll pull in everyone they can to improve on them.

Keltham: If Keltham is taken out and the info here is not understandable without context despite Keltham's best efforts, as would not be terribly surprising, they can hopefully ask Ione Sala, the Oracle of Nethys, currently findable in the Temple of the All-Seeing Eye.  Ione is forbidden to help Keltham about anything that matters, but she may be able to help Iomedans.

If Ione Sala isn't allowed to help with this - unfortunately Keltham did not think of this fast enough to ask her - spend whatever resources are required to rescue Asmodia of Project Lawful from Cheliax.  Carissa Sevar also has this knowledge, but will not willingly help destroy Cheliax, so only go for her instead if Asmodia is unreachable and you think you have sufficiently good mind control.

lintamande: "Or something sufficiently transformative short of destroying Cheliax - does she care who rules it?"

Keltham: "I straight-up do not know exactly what is up with Carissa.  Ione might know better."

lintamande: "Do you want me to try to make sense of the information, in case that gives you ideas for what else to include here so that we can better reconstruct it? We could use Modify Memory or similar, afterwards, if you want to avoid the information being known by me."

Keltham: "Sounds like a doomed endeavor!  Sure, let's try that.  Couple of other notes first -"

In the event that Keltham gets removed from the gameboard, they should possibly consider trying to spring an ambush on Asmodeus, Urgathoa, or whichever other god is being most inconvenient to Iomedae's plans, by Wishing for some very dangerous material in vacuum containment that will automatically fail if magic is removed from it; which you could maybe drop onto the ninth layer of Hell, and create an explosion large enough to destroy whatever chunk of Asmodeus usually lives there.  Less than a minute before they destroy Cheliax, would be the plan there, ideally; you can lose the advantage of surprise to a god in a few rounds, if you destroy Cheliax first, but an assault on Asmodeus shouldn't alert Cheliax as quickly.

Is Iomedae by any chance bound by known agreements, concessions, which would prevent Her from directly participating in a plan like that?  Maybe even require Her to shut down a plan like that, if She learned of it?

Keltham also needs to write a testament giving over his Project Lawful shares to somebody not in Cheliax, if Keltham permadies.  The pharaoh of Osirion is an obvious choice but Keltham is open to hearing how an Iomedan would be a better choice.  Keltham is pretty sure that he is more aligned with Iomedae than Abadar; he's nowhere near as sure about the Pharaoh of Osirion versus the Queen of Mendev.

lintamande: Keltham could give the funds in trust to the pharaoh of Osirion and ask that they be spent according to Keltham's values, less a stewardship fee; that's the kind of thing Abadarans are good for. If it goes to Queen Galfrey it'll probably largely be spent funding a crusade, which is a good use of it but if there are new opportunities opened up by weird shenanigans she won't be particularly positioned to identify those except insofar as they're relevant to fighting the Worldwound.

You can only drop something on the ninth level of Hell from the eighth level of Hell; in this manner Asmodeus ensures He is very hard to take by surprise. 

"....We have to destroy Hell, that is the highest priority for Good and for humanity. I cannot imagine Iomedae would have willingly agreed to promise not to destroy Hell, and I know that hypotheticals have been entertained under which we'd do it. I don't know most of the god-agreements that exist, and it's quite possible she's agreed not to do it under some particular sets of circumstances, but...what would be the point of a god of destroying Hell who isn't allowed to do it? ...more likely, there could be something Asmodeus is allowed to do if Iomedae does or enables that, which She thinks is sufficiently bad that it's worth Her not helping with the plan in order to avoid Asmodeus being permitted the retaliation."

Keltham: "I'll count that as a weak strike against my inchoate theories of what was actually going on with Iomedae and Nethys and Cayden Cailean, which I guess is not too surprising at this stage.  Hell is the priority, not Abaddon or the Abyss or, obviously, Pharasma?"

lintamande: "Hell is more capable of organized opposition to us. I don't know if it's where the most suffering is, and it's not where the most soul-death is, but Abaddon looks to inevitably fall once we're powerful enough; Urgathoa or the Rat God or whoever doesn't have a plan for a stable victory of Neutral Evil. The Abyss is a horror but demon lords are weaker than gods, and don't see as far, and the wiser ones know perfectly well that when Good turns its eyes on them they'd better be prepared to run. 

I understand the temptation to fight Pharasma but no one's put together a plan for that which even might work. And if we controlled all the afterlives and could resurrect people more readily then She wouldn't matter."

Keltham: "Please separate the concern of telling me what would be a good or bad thing to do, and let me worry about which things I can or can't do."

lintamande: "I'm not sure they're separable like that. Whether destroying Pharasma would be good depends on what you're in a position to replace her with."

Keltham: "I'll mark it down as 'it's complicated' and 'research Pharasma further before attempting to destroy It' which, frankly, I would probably have to do anyways.  But you aren't telling me, for example, that destroying Pharasma is known or believed to immediately puncture the bubble of reality that It created?"

lintamande: "It is in fact believed to do that."

Keltham: "Noted."

"All right, let's try me explaining things to you in whatever time window of Modify Memory we're sure they can cover, once that's been set up."

"Oh, and if they ask you how I seem to be doing, please just don't answer, or say all information like that is covered by nondisclosure."

Pilar : "Asmodia?  If you want to talk to me, come talk to me.  Do not summon me to your room to deliver cake."

Asmodia: The cake's plain texture signals to her that her sponsors have nothing to say to her about any current plans she is considering.

"Sorry.  I will keep that in mind from now on.  Is there some amount of money I can pay you to make up for it?"

Pilar : "This isn't Osirion, Asmodia," and also Pilar has still not figured out anything she wants to do with money.

Asmodia: "We're ilani, though, and I'm not really sure how Actually Lawful Asmodeanism could realistically operate without, like, lots of people paying each other to do lots of things?  There's theorems about it.  It's just efficient that way."

Pilar : "Okay, that actually does strike me as - there has to be a more Asmodean way to do that than moving money around like in Osirion or dath ilan.  Everyone owing everyone favors genuinely seems more Asmodean to me and, how can I put this, less soulless."

Asmodia: "Well, is there something I can do for you to make it up to you, then?  Show that I meant no disrespect to your pride?"

Pilar : "What do you want, Asmodia.  Just get around to it instead of wasting more of my time."

Asmodia: "So I was thinking that with Ione and Sevar both gone, there was nobody left on Project Lawful except me who understood tropes well enough to deal with them at all, unless the Grand High Priestess shows up and gives orders, and then it occurred to me that this was not in fact true.  You also know about tropes, Pilar.  You just don't do anything with that knowledge, unless somebody orders you into motion, to the point where we all forget you're there."

Pilar : "Yes.  Good slaves follow orders, Asmodia."

Asmodia: "Good slaves follow Asmodeus's orders exactly when they have those orders.  They follow orders in a more ordinary obedient way when somebody like the Most High gives them orders, in a way that doesn't assume the Most High had complete knowledge.  When they don't have orders, they follow their own initiative about either serving Asmodeus's interests, or - serving their own pride and pushing themselves up in the tyranny, where neither I nor Sevar nor apparently the Most High understand why that's Asmodeus's thing, instead of everybody just serving Asmodeus's utilityfunction.  But He's about tyranny and pride, not just slavery."

"You like following orders.  You like only following orders.  That's what's the most fun for Pilar Pineda, not what's best for Asmodeus's interests."

Pilar : "And what are you here to convince me is in Asmodeus's interests?"

Asmodia: "To protect all the Sevar loyalists from Security harassment.  I'd bargain with you for it, with all the money that I have, with my share of the Project, if I had anything that you wanted, to offer you, but you always make a point of not wanting anything except to serve Asmodeus."

Pilar : "How would I do that, exactly?"

Asmodia: "Throw a party for the Sevar loyalists within Security who'd be willing to help you, then give Gregoria a cookie to congratulate her on being rescued if somebody shows up to harass her."

"Pilar, you are, in fact, pretty fucking powerful.  You don't like to think about it, you never use that power for anything even to benefit Asmodeus unless somebody orders you to, but you have the power to save Project Lawful.  The question is whether you will."

Pilar : "And if I asked whether I should be taking directives about what will 'save Project Lawful' from somebody who wants Cheliax to fail?"

Asmodia: "I'd tell you to think about it yourself, but actually think about it, Pilar.  Don't just - do whatever it is you do, instead of thinking for yourself, because if you thought for yourself you might have to act without orders."

"Were you under the impression, before this meeting started, that Project Lawful was living up to its ideals of being at least as efficient as Hell, and preferably more efficient than that?"

Pilar : "I'm under the impression that Project Lawful was moving in a direction that Maillol and Subirachs, our current superiors, approved of."

Asmodia: "And what would Sevar, or the Queen, or the Grand High Priestess, think of the directions they're taking the Project?"

Pilar : "That's not my job to ask in an Asmodean tyranny."

Asmodia: "I think it's your job to know the answer to that in Sevarian Asmodeanism, Pilar.  Especially when you are, let's be blunt here, smarter than Maillol and Subirachs, and you are able to grasp aspects of this situation they cannot, including everything to do with tropes, and you have made no effort to warn them of your differing predictions, or check if they want to give you different orders."

"You are not being an ideal slave.  You are not being the most useful possible slave.  You are being the sort of slave Pilar Pineda finds it most fun to be."

Pilar : "Let me check whether you're on the list of people besides Aspexia Rugatonn who are authorized to correct me in matters of faith... oh, wait, it's the empty list."

Asmodia: "You know who else needs to be on that list?  Pilar fucking Pineda.  I'm appealing to her to correct you."

Pilar : "Okay, I'm really sure a good slave doesn't add to the list of people authorized to correct her, without getting orders from somebody already on the list."

Asmodia: "I am completely fine with you checking this dilemma with the Most High.  You have absolutely no idea how fine I am with that."

"Why wouldn't you, Pilar?  Is it because she might order you to think for yourself and take action accordingly and you just hate the thought of getting an order like that so you don't query the situation to your superior?"

Pilar : "No.  I wouldn't do that because going over Subirachs's head is not good Asmodean behavior unless I'm ready to take her job from her, which I'm not."

Asmodia: "I didn't say to query the Most High for new orders on Project Lawful overriding Subirachs.  I said to query the Most High about whether a good slave should be giving Maillol and Subirachs her frank advice on tropes, new Asmodeanism, and Project Lawful directions, in Carissa Sevar's absence, so that they have any trusted Asmodean to advise them about it.  Or maybe, even, assessing the situation according to Asmodeus's interests and asking herself what a good slave ought to do about it.  Just the matter of faith."

Pilar : "It's less of 'just a matter of faith' when you have particular orders or advice in mind, at the point where you write the Most High.  Then it's insubordination."

Asmodia: "All of this adds up very suspiciously to Pilar Pineda leading her own most comfortable life, not using the power she has to protect Asmodeus's interests nor querying the Most High about whether she should be trying to protect Asmodeus's interests."

Pilar : Pilar is aware, at this point, has been for a while actually, of all the pressures and flinches running around in her mind, about the possibility that Asmodia is right.  Which does not make Asmodia right, and definitely doesn't mean that Pilar has to admit to Asmodia that she's flinching.  This isn't dath ilan.

"That might be a more convincing argument if I was clearer on whether starting a fight inside Security, like you're suggesting, would actually be a good idea.  At all."

Asmodia: "Uh... am I missing something?  Security fighting each other does not seem like nearly the problem of Security harassing researchers.  Security harassing each other just is Asmodeans having fun, they have nothing better to do during their boring jobs."

Pilar : "It potentially escalates things, Asmodia, which is another concept that rumor has you entirely unable to grasp."

Asmodia: "Escalates them to the point where, what, the Grand High Priestess shows up and tells people what to do?  That sounds potentially bad for some people's careers, but it would be good for Cheliax and Asmodeus's interests because the Most High would actually be capable of grasping what's going on here and thinking sensibly about it."

Pilar : "The fact that you don't like how things are going is not an emergency that causes me to override what my current superiors want to be happening.  They know what is happening on Project Lawful.  They can change things themselves if they want."

Asmodia: "What they say they want is to find out what the natural power structure looks like.  I propose that the natural power structure looks like 'Pilar Pineda shuts down all the idiocy.'"

Pilar : "I seriously don't think I'm that powerful, Asmodia!"

Curse of Laughter: You totally could be, though!

Asmodia: "I really think you're underestimating yourself but fine.  Protect two people, using your powers, and stop pretending like Asmodeus's interests are being looked after when they're not."

Pilar : "You, and...?"

Asmodia: "I can take care of myself.  Yaisa Castilla and Korva Tallandria.  The Queen told Keltham that everything he valued in Cheliax would be waiting for him when he came back.  Yaisa's obvious.  I don't know why Keltham asked for Korva to come with him but I can see a trope when it slaps me in the face.  If either of them get placed in apparent character jeopardy by Security it sets up a plot hook for Keltham to come back and rescue them, and if they get traumatized by Security it trashes the Queen's planned storyline."

"You know fucking well that neither Maillol nor Subirachs nor Abarco are actually keeping track of any of that.  They wish tropes didn't exist and they do not have the ilani training to, not just live in the wish-world inside their heads.  No matter how much you wish they were keeping track of everything and you didn't have to.  That is also not reality."

"I checked.  Yaisa has already been - having sex with Security under questionable circumstances that would be less ambiguously trope-catastrophic if she weren't Yaisa, but they were definitely pressuring her and it's not a good sign of anybody keeping track of things."

Pilar : "Has anybody ever told you that this isn't how you ask for a favor, Asmodia?"

Asmodia: "I'd PAY for it if I had ANYTHING YOU WANTED, Pilar, or if there was anything I could do for you!  There isn't!  All I can do is try to make you see how you're not giving Asmodeus your best service!"

Pilar : "I'll consider it.  Here's part of the price."

"Answer me this, Asmodia.  You want Cheliax to lose.  Why are you doing any of this, if it's in Asmodeus's interests?"

Asmodia: "Cheliax is going to lose no matter what we do here.  Sevar and the Most High both bargained with me fairly and I - no, it's not that.  It's my pride.  I took this job and, even if it started as a threat, it became my job -"

Pilar : "No.  The real answer.  That's my price for even considering it."

Asmodia: "It's an answer that could be used against me.  I'd want you to say that you won't pass it on, to anyone else, or use it against me."

Pilar : "You're aware that Security still reads our minds, right?"