Carissa Sevar: "I'm not promising them mercy! That wouldn't make any sense - why would it help me to do that? - well, actually, I can see why promising that would help me but why would offering mercy help me?"
Aspexia Rugatonn: "MAKING SENSE is not primarily what is going on here. People who MAKE SENSE don't start HERESIES about HELL when they will later GO TO HELL and run into devils being UNHAPPY ABOUT THEIR HERESIES."
Carissa Sevar: " - right. Okay. I doubt anyone who presently believes in me is good material to be ilani, what with how you'd presently have to be an idiot. Or Pilar, good job Pilar.
...by your leave, my lord, I think I have work to do."
Dispater: "This has been the most interesting negotiation I've undertaken in some short while. For now at least, I name you favored possession of Dispater, Carissa Sevar of Golarion, who venerated Me before she thought she had material benefits to gain thereby. None in the City of Dis shall hinder you or harm you, when you pass here upon My business or your own, and the devils of Avernus shall grant you entry."
Carissa Sevar: " - thank you, my Lord."
She did pray to Him long before she was anyone of significance but she hadn't expected, particularly, that He'd noticed.
Dispater: He didn't then. You get to know more about somebody after You own their soul.
"Pilar Pineda, does your parasite still claim to have business with Me, or some other reason I should not devour it here and now?"
Pilar : "It continues to claim that it's here to offer You a deal, Lord Dispater. It says it's a super-amazing deal. It says that part of the conversation should just be the three of us, and wants You to tell me to guarantee its privacy too."
Dispater: "Oh? And it doesn't even want Me to promise not to eat it afterwards? Acceptable, and consider yourself told."
"Be about your business with My subordinates then, Carissa Sevar, priestess. And you may find it amusing to know -"
Curse of Laughter: "Don't tell them yet!"
Dispater: "I admire courage, but not so much courage that I get interrupted while I'm talking."
Curse of Laughter: "Sorry! But Carissa Sevar is super not allowed to know yet about how you got one over on her!"
Dispater: "According to who?"
Curse of Laughter: "Tell you shortly!"
Dispater: "Priestess, Carissa Sevar, be about your business with My subordinates while I talk to this thing and then, possibly, eat it."
Carissa Sevar: ....yes absolutely though she is DEEPLY CURIOUS how Dispater got one over on her. Hopefully it wasn't about anything essential.
Iarwain: A lesser devil will appear for them, to escort them to where Counts of Hell and some lesser contract devils of Chelish affairs have gathered to sell souls and options on souls.
Dispater: "Speak, parasite."
Curse of Laughter: "It's really bad for Asmodeus's interests if Carissa Sevar knows about that trick you played on her."
"And your interests."
"And the plotting Carissa Sevar's interests."
"Pretty much everybody's interests, actually! Erastil? Gozreh? Calistria? Not in their interests either!"
Dispater: "And why would that be?"
Curse of Laughter: "Obviously if I was going to explain that I would have already!"
Dispater: "Are you under the impression that you are funny?"
Curse of Laughter: "Yes."
Pilar : please eat it please eat it please eat it Lord Dispater please eat it
Dispater: "Whether I believe you about Asmodeus's interests or not - you have one chance to present me with a deal interesting enough that I don't just eat you."
Curse of Laughter: "One +6/+6/+4 headband and one +4/+6/+6 headband, in exchange for the guaranteed death of Cayden Cailean!"
Dispater: "Well now, that is an interesting deal. Seems like something of a low price, for the death of a god."
Curse of Laughter: "Cayden Cailean has already set Himself on a course that'll very likely end with His death! That price is just for His death becoming guaranteed to happen. I wouldn't cheat you by demanding the price for Him just like dying out of nowhere, when all I really have to sell is the guarantee!"
"I do think I'm funny, Mister Dispater. In fact, I literally can't help it! But that doesn't mean I wasn't honestly here to cut an honest deal with you."
Dispater: "I'm not willing to just take your word for that guarantee, godling, or even your oath."
Curse of Laughter: "You promise not to do anything with it or convey it to anyone or hint about it or intimate it etcetera etcetera for a period of one year, and I give you information that you could use to bring about Cayden Cailean's death after that year if He's not already dead."
Dispater: "How interesting. Has Cayden been a naughty god? Breaking treaties, perhaps?"
Curse of Laughter: "Nooooot saying anything until you agree to the compact!"
"Though obviously He's been a very naughty god. During the entirety of His existence. Because, like, Cayden Cailean."
Dispater: "I don't suppose you'd tell Me how Cayden Cailean is otherwise supposed to die, if I promise not to tell anybody else and instruct your host to do the same? For some small additional fee, perhaps."
Curse of Laughter: "Nnnnope!"
Dispater: "Well. I am interested, but grant me that I consult with Asmodeus about this matter. The death of Cayden Cailean is more His interest than Mine, and I'll need to seek reimbursement from Him for your payment."
Curse of Laughter: "Nice try, buster! You're Lawful best buds, you'll just tell Him afterwards that you acted in His interests strictly conditional on your prediction that He'd reimburse you blah blah blah Golarion knows decision theory now!"
Dispater: "Does it. Well then, I'm possibly inclined to take your deal. Any reason I shouldn't eat you afterwards? You've been more than rude enough to negate the hospitality extended to a guest who'd bargain with Me."
Curse of Laughter: "Project Lawful still needs me around! Won't be able to even start to recover from the next major Project disaster without me!"
"Also, while my awareness isn't mechanically necessary to Pilar's curse, or to Pilar growing stronger and tearing more and more of Cayden Cailean's power away from Him, my advice to her can speed up the process a lot."
Dispater: "It's an obvious thought that you're going to end up the new Chaotic Good god after He dies, but I'm looking at you quite closely and I don't see any way for the curse to operate so. You're not the seed of anything, you receive no part of any stolen divinity; at best you'd be able to scurry off as a demigod. Any comments on that, Snack Service?"
Curse of Laughter: "I wouldn't sell you Cayden Cailean's death and just have some new Chaotic Good god pop up to replace Him! That'd be cheating! Really, Asmodeans are always so suspicious!"
Dispater: "Lawful Good or Neutral Good, then."
Curse of Laughter: "Nope!"
Dispater: "He's eaten by one of the existing Good gods to increase their power."
Curse of Laughter: "He's not into that sort of relationship! Not even with the really hot dommy goddesses! Also nope."
Pilar : Okay so it's an obvious thought that Cayden Cailean is supposed to die because Pilar is in fact supposed to finish consuming Him entirely but this does not seem like it could possibly be right...
Why isn't Dispater asking that?
Curse of Laughter: Because Mister Dispater is courteous about deals, and He's not going to ask that question if it isn't information He needs to execute this deal!
Also He knows that since He doesn't need the information I wouldn't answer.
Pilar : Am I, in fact, destined to consume Cayden Cailean.
Curse of Laughter: You'll find out eventually! Meanwhile, you should try putting a probability on that! It'd be good training for ilani thinking!
Carissa Sevar: After about the sixth purchase of the soul of a Project Lawful girl from a Count of Hell delighted to be getting one over on her by selling at the last list price, or else suspicious that they're being cheated, or both at once, Carissa can feel herself flagging.
It's been a long ....day? Probably just the one day. She's not actually sure how long she spent in Dispater's presence, going over the contract. Her Unseen Servants last almost nine hours at this point, and they ran out at some point. The Most High hasn't recast Planar Adaptation, which means it hasn't been more than twenty hours, unless time is obeying Dispater, here, which it probably does do.
But it's been long enough that she's run through all her adrenaline and is persisting on sheer determination, and inconveniently she still cannot afford to make a mistake.
When she's a devil she won't need to sleep and won't get tired it'll be amazing.
Iarwain: It's probably also the company. This Count of Hell looks like a chiseled naked male form composed entirely of out of writhing white maggots, each maggot so tiny that seeing him/it from across the room, you might only notice a moving white statue of a man of an odd texture.
Not that the appearance would be that disturbing on its own, of course; but it/he is also scary.
Aspexia Rugatonn: Restoration.
They don't particularly have the option of calling a rest.
lintamande: When Pilar's parasite has completed its negotiation with Dispater, she is escorted out by some black-winged many-clawed servants, to the meeting hall where soul-sales are ongoing. The sights to see along the way are marvelous; Dispater's palace is the most civilized place in Hell. Agonized souls do get used for the building material, but tastefully; petrified angels do gaze desperately down on the passersby, but they're very pretty ones and no one has recently dumped acid on them or smeared them with entrails or anything.
The air is tastefully scented of lavender. There's a waterfall of blood.
Pilar : It doesn't really bother her.
It doesn't really bother her, she's seen Hell scryed to her before.
It doesn't really bother her, she's seen Hell scryed to her before; maybe she wasn't there in person, but she was shown more tormented things than this.
It doesn't really bother her even when she sees the elegant dancers with the desperate eyes, but she does feel curious, then.
"Are they being punished? Shaped?" she asks one of her black-winged guides.
lintamande: " - those? They're decorations."
Pilar : "Curious about what they did to turn into decorations or how long they stay decorations - that one, say." Pilar points out the dancer nearest to herself.
lintamande: "Oh - striking facial features, interesting poses, expressive eyes, long limbs - just because longer limbs translate better to most poses - angels are popular even if they're kind of ugly angels - musculature, that sort of consideration. These were a gift from the Duke Kyzzarafhar, when this wing of the palace was built nine thousand years ago, Lord Dispater doesn't change up the displays much."
Pilar : Makes sense. Probably the dancers don't remember either, at this point, how they failed Asmodeus so badly.
Maybe she's just tired. It's been something of a day. That could be why she's feeling - vulnerable, like this, in a way she didn't feel when she was trying to defend her beliefs to azatas in Elysium.
Curse of Laughter: (It's the +6 Wisdom headband if anybody's wondering.)
Iarwain: The repurchase of the Project Lawful girls is going much faster than the negotiations with Dispater did, in terms of objective time. His subordinates have been ordered to sell, and most of them have just sold, with some angry resentment that they're not profiting more, but not wanting to waste their own time on foregone conclusions. The time just seems longer, because the lesser nobility of Hell are so much more tiring to deal with.
Last among the sellers of Project Lawful girls to Sevar: Asmodia's most recent owner of record, who bought her cheaply compared to the other nobility of Hell commanded here to exit this market. It is but a Seigneur of Hell, taking the form of a sheep-headed humanoid devoid of genitalia and with empty bleeding eyesockets. It bought Asmodia speculating that the price of Project Lawful girls would soon recover; and it seems to think that Carissa Sevar looks tired enough to eventually pay over a price closer to that of the other Project Lawful girls, if it goes on arguing for why its investment was clever and risky and deserves more than mere repayment. There was an attempt made to resurrect her by a non-Evil caster, and a less alert owner might have let that go through when its possession had already been kidnapped away to the Gardens of Erecura! Asmodia's soul is only safely where it is due to its own cleverness!
Carissa Sevar: It is true that it would have been very bad for Asmodeus's interests if the idiot holding Asmodia's soul had permitted a resurrection by a non-Evil caster. This Seigneur is richly rewarded by continuing to exist.
Iarwain: Being a mortal favored of Dispater does not give her the dominance to talk to a Seigneur of Hell like that.
Carissa Sevar: Observably it seems to.
Iarwain: She is violating her order and place in Hell, not realizing that Dispater's orders to see this transaction done cannot protect her from the later retribution that her slights will see visited on herself.
Carissa Sevar: "Either I shall rise in Hell to become a Power in my own right, so precious to Asmodeus that you will quake in centuries in terror at the thought I might remember your name and see fit to crush you, or I shall fail, and be destroyed for it; any lesser nonsense is entirely irrelevant to me. Sign the contract."
Iarwain: It signs, not happily, but happiness is rare in Hell.
Curse of Laughter: "Well done on completing your collection, Carissa Sevar! Just so you know, if Asmodia is in pristine condition her soul's ownership can be traded to Otolmens for a favor! Like allowing Asmodeus to intervene once inside the nonintervention zone, for example! Though you'll not be wanting to trade her in the immediate future."
Iarwain: The sheep-headed thing with empty bleeding eyesockets is now much less happy.
Carissa Sevar: "It works for Cayden Cailean," she tells the sheep-headed thing irritably. "You should kill it."
Iarwain: The sheep-headed thing stares at Pilar with its empty and bleeding eyesockets.
It turns its head back, giving Carissa Sevar an empty-socketed expression that somehow still conveys skepticism.
Then it stalks off, showing a terrible anger and dignity that would be more effective if it did not also somehow seem to be running away.
Pilar : "Snack Service is saying that you being known to have gotten one over on Lord Dispater's subordinates will help with your reputation in Hell, and it's complaining about how you're not being grateful for that or for the favor it did you of making sure you made the right trade."
"I was really, really hoping Lord Dispater would eat it."
Carissa Sevar: "As was I. I guess we'll just have to do it ourselves. What do you suppose Otolmens wants with Asmodia?"
Pilar : "It's not saying."
Carissa Sevar: "Well, I'll think about it once I'm smarter, and if I end up concluding that Snack Service did me a favor a mortal should be grateful for, then I still won't be grateful because that is my due."
Now let's sign some options on Security-souls!
Pilar : It goes quickly, possibly because Pilar is standing behind Carissa Sevar in the position of something subordinate to her.
Carissa Sevar: Good. Carissa is about ready to go home, not that she has one. ....she should get herself a fancy demiplane. All the cool wizards have them.
Iarwain: After they finish purchasing options, a new devil approaches them! This one could be the sort of devil invented by people who think devils ought to be pretty, and weren't creative about what that meant, creating something like a perfect average of everything stereotypically beautiful. They're wearing robes that mortals would find aesthetic with no symbols of blood or pain, and androgynous in appearance, an average halfway between all the pretty women and all the pretty men.
You could almost mistake them for a mortal, if not for an air about them of excessive horror and strength; practically everything in Hell promises a fate worse than death, but whatever this is promises a fate worse than being a screaming tormented blob for eternity.
In their hands they hold a gemless crown of mithril, such as a mortal duke might wear if they scorned ornamentation; to Arcane Sight it radiates the magic of a lesser artifact, weaker than the Crown of the Most High or the Crown of Infernal Majesty, but stronger than any other magic Carissa Sevar is likely to have ever seen. It can disguise itself as a +2 Splendour headband, cannot be removed save willingly, will not function for an unauthorized user, can cast CL 18 true seeing and CL 18 banishment once per week each, grants fire resistance 20 to the wearer, and would convey knowledge of Infernal if Carissa Sevar didn't already have permanent Tongues.
(Pilar's two headbands will be along tomorrow morning, after two Infernal Dukes have time to craft them and Dispater to apply the finishing touches. Dispater only had the one headband easily on hand.)
Carissa Sevar: Probably some mortals have been happier about selling their soul but probably not very many of them.
Carissa Sevar: (Is it heretical to intend to figure out how to make things like this herself?)
Pilar : "Snack Service says that it paid Lord Dispater for a cosmetic treatment that would make you look safely not as pretty as Abrogail Thrune when she returned from Hell, but as pretty as you could be under that limit, and this devil is also here to administer it."
Carissa Sevar: " - I am confused Snack Service cares about that but I guess it sounds useful for a Keltham seduction plan. Go ahead," she says to the terrifying prettydevil.
Iarwain: If you weren't, like, Carissa Sevar or Pilar Pineda or somebody like that, you'd probably consider this horrifically painful.
Carissa Sevar: It is in fact horrifically painful! But - but this is everything Hell is supposed to be, pain for a purpose, pain that leaves you better off, and there are people who worship her, now, and games she does not understand, and she will not curl up in a ball sobbing she won't she won't she won't
Carissa Sevar: Eventually it stops. She feels numb, maybe just by comparison. Jolts of wholly-imagined pain keep searing up her cheeks.
Carissa Sevar: "Well," she says to Pilar as soon as her voice won't shake. "Do an illusion so I can see it?"
Pilar : "I don't have one hung, but -"
Pilar Prestidigitates the air of Hell into a flimsy but straight and functional mirror. She is still a Project Lawful girl, after all.
Carissa Sevar: "Huh. I actually kind of expect this to have mixed results on Keltham, but it'll be useful for my cult taking off. Most High, is there anything I'm forgetting before we return?"
Aspexia Rugatonn: "If so, it escapes me as well." Even she is tired, staying wary and watchful in Hell for this long.
Pilar : "Snack Service authorizes me to say that it traded an information tidbit to Lord Dispater for Him to not offer us a Plane Shift back to Avernus 'and now the timing will be right'. WHY."
Carissa Sevar: "Right, then, let us depart." It feels wrong to say 'let's get out of here' or something when she's wearing a minor artifact and holding the soul-contracts or option-contracts of thirty different people.
lintamande: They encounter less trouble, on their way back through the city; perhaps it is Dispater's announcement that Carissa is his favored possession, perhaps it is Snack Service visible instead of hiding, perhaps it is the Infernal artifact sitting on her forehead. They cross an enormous steel bridge that passes over both rivers, made of some soft metal that is red-hot where it's near the lava. Carissa now has permanent Fire Resistance 20, and is unbothered. The lemures sloughing around, miserable pillows of tortured flesh, burn; it smells like cooking meat.
The bridge offers a good view. There's a beautiful black outdoor amphitheater in which Dis hosts a slave market that puts any on Golarion to shame; the place is carefully architected to allow tens of thousands of people to pass through and hundreds of auctions to run simultaneously, along with room for private showings. The pieces of it can revolve to change the size of the partitioned rooms, to accommodate auctions that attract particular interest. There's a row of skyscrapers with tops like impaling spikes, with people genuinely impaled on them, struggling fruitlessly.
On one street corner there are recognizable petitioners, their eyes gouged out, their ears cut off, but their form still plainly a human one, not yet reduced or fleshshaped from there; they are washing the streets with acid that burns away at their bare feet as they work.
Pilar : She's probably just exhausted.
Carissa Sevar: Is all of this good for productivity? Has anyone checked, with a control city where all the punishment happens in secret?
Aspexia Rugatonn: "I cannot seem to read your mind, Pilar."
Pilar : "I regret my failure to mention it earlier, Most High. Lord Dispater sealed all my thoughts so that I would not reveal any of His dealings with Snack Service. I am permitted to say that I did not, myself, witness anything that seemed a betrayal of Asmodeus's interests to pass between them, and Snack Service of course claims that it would never."
Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia Rugatonn sighs rather heavily, and says nothing, not having calculated anything it seems especially wise to say.
Carissa Sevar: They reach the platform. The devil that turns the wheel that hauls it does not demand payment.
Up they go, into the smoky sulfurous skies of Dis, into Avernus.
Aspexia Rugatonn: On the way up, Aspexia Rugatonn receives a Sending from the Palace.
She's so tired of Snack Service at this point, she can't even be bothered to react emotionally.
Instead she just waits until the moment they're out of Dis, into the first layer of Hell, without delaying until their platform reaches the fortress proper; and then Plane Shifts them all to somewhere within 5-500 miles of Egorian.
lintamande: 355 miles North-Northwest, in the archduchy of Ravounel. This area is forested.
Aspexia Rugatonn: She doesn't particularly care, they will not be here longer than moments. "So long as we were not already back, we - that is, Sevar and myself - were summoned to a formal event at the Palace, if our condition permits it. I replied that we'd think about it. You, Sevar, are apparently already dressed for it. It's to begin shortly, and while I doubt the Queen would begrudge you a quarter-hour to recover, I expect she'd also be pleased if you arrived on time, were you in good condition on arrival." Aspexia Rugatonn taps Sevar with another Lesser Restoration as she speaks.
Carissa Sevar: "I'm not even going to be able to sleep when I'm dead, am I. If it pleases the Queen, we can go now."
Aspexia Rugatonn: Aspexia Rugatonn invokes an item-based Teleport to the designated landing platform, right outside the appropriate area of the Palace's Forbiddance.
Security: Security doesn't recognize this beautiful woman, at first, but the girl with pink hair and the Most High beside her are a sufficient hint for him to put the rumors together.
"Lady Sevar?" he says, awestruck at both her appearance and the magic radiating from the crown she wears. She looks exactly like the rumors say.
Carissa Sevar: Oh shoot does she know this person? Does she own an option on his soul and not even recognize him, that's so embarrassing - she really doesn't recognize him at all, though -
"Yes."
Security: He bows to her, relaying a Telepathic request for orders as he does.
He straightens. "I'm to escort you to the Queen at once, Lady."
Aspexia Rugatonn: "First give over to me those headbands you no longer need, and your bracer of Infernal culture. Pilar, with me."
Aspexia stalks wearily off to find a nicer dress while all this is going on.
Carissa Sevar: If greater-Carissa foresaw all this greater-Carissa is definitely working with Nethys, she realizes dimly as she is escorted to the Queen. - she'll think about that tomorrow. After she's gotten some sleep.
Abrogail Thrune II: "Carissa. I shall inquire of how your negotiations went once we have a moment; it's evident enough from your new headgear that you received more than beauty."
"The Nidal war is over; Pangolais surrendered. Much of the nobility of Cheliax has assembled to celebrate, this night, and it would be a convenient time to present you, if Hell wasn't too hard on you. Was it?"
Carissa Sevar: "Truth be told, I rather took a liking to it.
- congratulations. On winning the war."
Abrogail Thrune II: "I couldn't have done it without the convenient pretext and Otolmens stealing all their diamonds and Zon-Kuthon being sealed and Zon-Kuthon's clerics losing their higher-level spells, all of which are no doubt Project Lawful's fault in one way or another."
"Would you like to be presented as Lady Sevar straight out? Or shall I introduce you to them at first as my beautiful lover who's just recently been to the big city for the first time, and let the more foolish wolves sniff at you and scorn you before we spring your real identity on them?"
Carissa Sevar: "I've visited Egorian before recently! I was eight! My father had a business Teleport with extra space in it and he said he'd take me so long as I understood if I made a peep the whole trip he'd cut my tongue out. It was lovely."
Abrogail Thrune II: "The bigger city, Carissa. - you are tired, aren't you."
Carissa Sevar: "Exhausted. I can keep up any game you want if you tell me the script but left to my own devices I will only smile mysteriously and occasionally almost slip and call you 'Abrogail'."
Abrogail Thrune II: "We could present you as the naive lover, and any slips you make will obviously be part of your disguise once revealed. Or you could be Lady Sevar and scorn the company of all save the few who've been to Hell themselves, who'll understand the exhaustion. Do choose quickly, the gathering is almost set to begin."
Carissa Sevar: "Naive lover, and we can see if anyone figures out how much of that isn't lying."
Abrogail Thrune II: "Do you need an illusion or can that crown shift itself?"
Carissa Sevar: "It's very well behaved." +2 Splendour headband, like so.
Abrogail Thrune II: "Excellent." Abrogail takes Carissa by the arm, and sweeps off with her towards the celebration of victory over Nidal that is about to begin.
Curse of Laughter: It's time for the BEST* NIGHT EVER!
(*) according to some imaginable utility functions which may not be shared by literally any of the participants in this event including Snack Service
Cheliax: The greatest ballroom in the Imperial palace has been pressed into this event; it's not quite fair to say that it's more of an arena with a dance floor, because you can't fit that inside a realistic palace, but the design of it takes something from an arena. There's three levels to the surrounding structure, from which you could look down on the dance floor and the platform that identifies the room's head, balconies and boxes with one-way windows that look outward, reachable by a confusing and deniable maze of halls and stairs. Whoso made this room recognized and intended that at least half the people in it were going to sneak off and conspire together, and half of those wouldn't want to be identifiable as having left or returned in each other's company.
Today only the room's center has been left clear for dancing, the rest of the room occupied with some of the most impressive exhibits of the Nidal war. The spiked head of a Phylacator, a profoundly dangerous kyton that required every 8th-circle of Cheliax plus Gorthoklek to slay without any casualties among important people. A handkerchief carefully soiled with the blood of a Black Triune now fled. A beautiful and muscular shackleborn tiefling male, once second-in-command of a brigade, now with his fingers cut off, chained with spiked chains piercing his skin, for sale to the highest bidder this night.
Most of Nidal's most portable and value-dense treasures, precious metals and gemstones and magic items and scrolls, are long since Teleported out of the country by rats fleeing their sinking ship; but somebody managed to leave behind a Helm of Brilliance, meant perhaps for internal defense against Kuthite rebels. It is exhibited here, lying proof that immediate wealth was gained of Nidal and not just an eventual tax base.
Cheliax: People widen their eyes in surprise remain unreadable and expressionless as Abrogail Thrune enters the ballroom, escorting a woman not quite as beautiful as herself but as beautiful as almost anyone else in Cheliax, with none of the visible marks that would betray the work of alchemists to the trained eye; she's either a rare natural beauty or the work of a surpassingly skilled fleshcrafter.
Those who can cast Detect Magic do so, noting if they pass those Spellcraft checks that the new entrant wears a +2 headband of Splendour and a Ring of Eloquence and a Ring of Sustenance, and bears some manner of enchanted pin with a transmutation effect currently running. A few in the ballroom have means to check the strength of her alignment aura, and find she apparently has none, which might or might not be true at all.
The beauty looks like she's numb with fear... or, possibly, somewhat tired and checked out, but it's probably that numb one. Nobody could possibly be tired enough to check out of being escorted by Abrogail Thrune into a room full of the most dangerous people in Cheliax.
Abrogail Thrune II: Her Infernal Majestrix, Queen Abrogail II of the House of Thrune, addresses the crowd without bothering about moving to the head of the room.
"My loyal subjects, and everyone else present, tonight we celebrate the end of an era of Cheliax. Under your previous ruler, you lost Andoran and Galt; beneath myself, you've gained Nidal. We are no longer a structure that dies but a structure that grows."
"Nidal launched a treacherous surprise attack on us, in defiance of the knee they had pretended to bend to us through centuries. Our god miserably crushed their god, and their defeat in battle followed shortly after. The news-sheets will say that our armies and wizards proved their quality, but in truth, they mostly proved their quantity. Don't bother consoling yourselves about how few other countries in Golarion could field soldiers as individually vicious as Nidal's. It's heresy to claim that Hell cannot raise up more vicious and formidable warriors than Zon-Kuthon, and we have fallen unacceptably short of that target. This war should not have taken as long as it did."
"Tonight I do honor, then, to the wizard academies of Cheliax, and the schools that feed them. Quantity won this war - the Cheliax that trains a greater percentage of its inhabitants to wizardry than any other nation in the world."
"It's still not good enough, of course. We are ramping up the manufacture of intelligence headbands beyond what any other nation in Golarion imagines to be possible, not only +2 intelligence headbands but +4. In the short term, we intend to fit all our fourth-circles with +4 headbands and all our third-circles with +2 headbands. In the middle term, the most promising students in academies will be loaned headbands for six-hour shifts in four classes, speeding their initial acquisition of wizard skills. In years beyond, we'll use that to train INT 13 students as if they were INT 17s and double our wizard population from its unacceptably low current point of being the highest in the world."
"We begin with the highest percentage of wizards, and in the true contest now begun with the Scientific Revolution out of Osirion, our path to victory will be compounding the interest of our initial wealth. They too will learn to refine spellsilver as we do, given time. We have begun first. We will have more wizards who master Prestidigitation, we will refine more spellsilver, we will make more headbands and train more wizards, and every innovation out of the Scientific Revolution that they do not manage to keep utterly secret will be adopted by a country that is more literate than theirs."
"We will be more motivated, and more unified, because that is the advantage of Evil over Good and the advantage of Law over Chaos. But make no mistake, it is very hard to win a war with quality that you are losing on quantity. Wars are won by farmers, not warriors, because it's the farms that determine how much gold you have available to raise up warriors of whatever quality you can manage."
"If you get fascinated by whatever sparking gadgets are coming out of the Scientific Revolution, and ignore what knowledge our spies have stolen about agriculture, sanitation, medicine, educational techniques, I will kill you and give your heir exactly one chance to do better before I take away your family lands and award them to somebody more competent."
"I am also unbelievably pleased - you have no idea how pleased I am - to announce that in the coming month, every single noble of Cheliax will be issued with a +4 Intelligence headband. Any time your superior or the Crown tells you that you're being stupid, you're going to take off whatever headgear you were previously wearing, and put on the Intelligence headband, and not take it off until they tell you the problem has been corrected. I've had it with ruling a country of idiots."
Abrogail Thrune II: "I'll end by introducing to you my most recent lover. She's weary, having just returned from her first trip to the big city, and wasn't expecting this party, but I have every confidence in her ability to handle a little surprise like that."
"Have fun, dear..."
(inaudibly to any others:)
"...and remember the identity of any one celebrant below the County level who annoyed you sufficiently, for later games tonight."
Carissa Sevar: The beautiful woman on Abrogail's arm smiles at her, and nods just slightly, and looks around at the crowd.
Carissa Sevar: They're more attractive and much less terrifying than the crowds in Dis.
She wonders how many of them have been, how many of them know and how many of them just try not to think about it. It seems pathetic, to her, trying not to think about it. Her crazy cultists are also pathetic but at least they think about it enough to be afraid.
Carissa Sevar: Does Abrogail think about Hell?
There's no way she doesn't. She has definitely been there. It's - really, really not the kind of thing Carissa can ask, ever.
Carissa Sevar: ....it's a really good thing that later they're going to revise all their 'this girl is an idiot' opinions to "Carissa Sevar was elaborately toying with us" because now she is staring emptily at the crowd.
Carissa Sevar: No more of that! Abrogail's mysterious, probably-terrified new lover is at this party and she's going to meet people! If she looks innocent and overwhelmed, well, that'll probably interestingly filter the people!