Carissa Sevar: "I have a feeling you could afford to double it."

Taravind: "So I could, though it's not clear how your cult could usefully spend the extra money.  I've spent a hundred gold pieces per week because they haven't rented any more speaking-places, or required more protection about their business, or found more criers to hire, than that."

"How about you simply don't sell me to anyone who hasn't agreed to abide by the terms of the compact, including that term?  And I'll offer up to two hundred gold per week support, if whoever seems to be your cult's current leader in Indapatta has requests as productive, fairly judged by myself, as those they've made already; for at least one year, and at most ten years or until I die or have myself petrified for a time, whichever comes first."

Carissa Sevar: "Twelve years, and you can't petrify yourself inside four." This doesn't matter at all but she can't tip her hand on being indifferent to anything that doesn't happen in the next two months. "And averaging two hundred a week, if there are requests as productive as those they've made already, but exceeding that sometimes, if, for instance, there's a spike in demand whenever I pass through town."

Taravind: "I expect that'll be acceptable to me.  I'll wish to write a formal compact and think on its terms before I quite sign myself over..."

"How am I to know if I've done Hell more service than disservice?  That's an element of the compact you were to seek with Asmodeus, according to what your Disciple said."

Carissa Sevar: "With that, I can make you no guarantees, except that Hell likes it when you damn people, and the rumor mill at least has it you enjoy that yourself."

Taravind: He smiles more widely, at that.  "I've never hired a Malediction and would never.  They damned themselves, and if any element of that was unfair, it's Pharasma who made those rules, not myself.  But since they went to Hell, I might as well profit in reputation from having their fates scryed and made known, and acting as if it were all my doing."

"I haven't done Hell any disservice that I know of...  Can I simply send gifts to Cheliax's government for that purpose?  You mentioned a succession dispute in Cheliax, is there anything I should know to avoid doing you a disservice there?"

Carissa Sevar: She smiles blandly. "Maybe send your gifts in a month once things have settled down."

Taravind: He smiles back, equally blandly.  "How long do you stay with us, in Indapatta?  I'd like some time to think over contract wordings and perhaps consult someone more knowledgeable in Infernal compacts."

Carissa Sevar: "I'd only planned to spend the evening, this trip, and to return perhaps monthly, if events don't change that. I have cults in many cities, and things keeping me busy at home besides. I'd want the increase in spending to start immediately, to take advantage of any opportunities my presence presents; I can wait a month to ink the deal, if you can."

Taravind: He hesitates slightly, and then nods to this.  "With the understanding that the timed terms begin running now, yes."

"Is there aught else I can do for you?"

Carissa Sevar: "Not especially. Pleasure doing business." - she pauses on the coat-rack as she stands. "Posed with Dominate Person, or natural?"

Taravind: It's something of a personality-test, that petrified woman: some joke uncomfortably, some compliment him, relatively few notice the improbability of petrifying somebody at just the right moment to produce an ideal cloak-holder.

"I told her to do it, and she did.  It turns out that even if you're not a fifth-circle wizard you can get a long way in life on just threats."

Carissa Sevar: "Heh, I thought so. Hell keep you, Master Taravind."

Taravind: "May you succeed in all your goals, Master Sevar."

Carissa Sevar: Well, she's not profoundly satisfied with that or anything but she is pretty sure, if it leaks, no one will infer that Carissa Sevar expects the world to end in a month, for better or for worse, nor that Hell, if she ever rules in it, is going to be very different. 

Taravind: He'll escort her from his place of business personally.  Being seen in Carissa Sevar's amicable company can only help his status in Indapatta; those who feared him before will be in terror of him now.

Carissa Sevar: She is happy to be a terrifying accessory to this guy, who does seem like the kind of person Asmodeus wants, including his desperate trying to avoid becoming Asmodeus's. 

Indapatta: Parvansh is still waiting for her in the foyer when she comes there, of course, to escort her to the fifth-circle and the sunset's meeting-place.

Carissa Sevar: She's looking forward to it!

Indapatta: ...He can't fly anymore, though.  Does she want to do that again, or walk to the fifth-ring location?

Carissa Sevar: She can Fly him again, why not.

Indapatta: Then they'll be able to approach the meeting-place very quickly.  Parvansh should probably be able to think of a million better questions, but the only one coming to his mind is whether Sevar got along amicably with Grandmerchant Taravind; they're both rather important people to Sevarism in Indapatta.  He'll ask that one.

Carissa Sevar: "We did! It's interesting to meet Lawful Evil people who aren't Chelish; they relate to it very differently."

Indapatta: "How so?"

(He's still nervous about exactly how well they got along.)

Carissa Sevar: "I don't have it all figured out yet. I haven't, actually, spoken to all that many people outside Cheliax. 

Is he useful to you?"

Indapatta: "He is the most powerful person associated with Sevarism in Indapatta.  People would respect us less if we did not have his backing; if they respected us less, fewer promising folk would come to us."

Carissa Sevar: "Well, it is my hope that you'll grow in prominence, and I am delighted to have been introduced to him."

Indapatta: Parvansh begins to slow, and descends towards what was clearly a medium-nice inn, at some point in the past, and it's been kept up acceptably.  There's roses about the grounds and an old signboard proclaims this the Rose Inn.

"The gathering of those with promise will be called here, for sunset, if that's agreeable to you."

"- I hope I may say honestly to my superior, it will probably not be good for your cause here, if you then fail to appear."

Carissa Sevar: "It would take some very surprising event indeed to prevent me from keeping my appointment, and hopefully if that happens I can at least send an acolyte in my place. I think it very likely that I'll be there."

Indapatta: "Should I warn them to expect a vision of Hell, on your arrival?  I - do think that those who fled, were not necessarily being cowardly, in doing that, there is something to be said about common sense, there -"

Carissa Sevar: "Yeah. It would be a shame to build a cult with no common sense. I'll do it, but I'll make sure, first, that they have no reason to think their physical safety is in question and that I am not going to grab and Maledict anyone as a demonstration."

Indapatta: "So you will not be doing it on arrival, then, and I need not warn them about that?"

Carissa Sevar: "Correct."

Indapatta: "Are there any - services, objects, codes of dress, any else that you'd have of us for your appearance here?  This will be a great day for Sevarism in Vudra, I think."

Carissa Sevar: "If there is anyone, among my following here, who would sell their soul, and if that's legal here, I would give them a very good price for it tonight. Beyond that - dress well. It's not an ascetic faith. I plan to make the world much richer, and Hell even richer than that."

Indapatta: “Buy souls?  Can you - do that?”

Carissa Sevar: "I know some devils, and I can arrange for my own to be held as mine. I do not know if it is legal in Indapatta; even if it is, they might change their mind after someone does it publicly rather than in dire secrecy. I think there are lots of people who'd sell their souls, if they had time to think about it and if Hell was a better place."

Indapatta: “I don’t even know if that’s legal and am - concerned that our Irorian sponsor will not be happy about it.  You could ask her, I suppose?  I would disobey city authorities for you, Master, but would wish not to do so openly without good reason.”

Carissa Sevar: "It is in our interests to knowably obey local authorities where they are reasonable. Mine is a somewhat threatening faith, and We don't want to invite crackdowns on it. I think I could assuage the doubts of our sponsor, were this legal, and were there someone who desired it, but it would need to be someone whose Way walks this path, as mine did."

Indapatta: "There's no harm in asking, Master, but I think it unlikely she will assent.  Indapatta is a very Lawful place by comparison to other places of which I've heard tell, but it is not so Lawful that something not being illegal is enough to mean that you, or she, can get away with doing that openly.  Were you to order word spread among us in private, and meet sellers quietly afterward - I think we could get away with that, if it were legal."

Carissa Sevar: "Spread word, then, quietly, and I'll make arrangements for afterwards, just as quietly. If there's someone who wants a loved one returned from the dead, or ten thousand gold, or to wear my crown and see if it sets them on the path to enlightenment and to be generously equipped for where that path takes them afterwards.... I am very rich, and there are some benefits, in the pursuit of this path, for having chosen it so you can no longer dally about it."

Indapatta: "Your will, Master."

Carissa Sevar: "Go, then," she says, and smiles very beautifully and very terrifyingly, and turns around to look for Ri-Dul.

Ri-Dul: He'll appear once this person is gone.

"You know, I once considered starting my own cult?  Today I am once again confirmed in my belief that, no matter how clever the magical tattoo I had invented to enforce loyalty, refraining from doing that was absolutely the right decision."

Carissa Sevar: "Awww, I don't see why not, this is fun." Except she does see it. It's fun if you like them, if you want to spend your time trying to comprehend them or if you enjoy their suffering.

Otherwise it's just -

- objectively speaking, getting people to sell their souls on the basis of a compact you're probably not going to fulfill is an awful thing to do, and no one could reasonably believe Carissa's going to be able to fulfill it. In a sense, any person she signs up is making a mistake.

It so happens that things are going to change very soon in objective time, and it's reasonably likely that either they'll be annihilated or that Hell will be much improved. 

But still, it's an awful thing to talk someone into. The reason Carissa is doing it is precisely that it's an awful thing to talk someone into. Word will spead, through Chelish spy networks or Hellish reporting, and they'll think - no, they'll know - that Carissa Sevar is not Lawful Neutral, is not planning to sell them out, because no Lawful Neutral person would talk people into Hell on the promise of making it gentler for them and then abandon them to it. She's pretty sure Axis wouldn't let you in, even if Pharasma was distracted by some shiny orphans you fostered or something. 

And so it'll be the proof she needs that she is still serving Asmodeus, and hopefully He'll keep that in mind, on some level, when He decides whether the world is worth fighting for. 

And the soul-sold? In the world where Keltham fails ignominiously and is crushed like a bug and Hell and the world stay the same?

Well, Carissa will probably be crushed too, in that world, so she guesses they'll just go to Hell, then.  

That anguish, the anguish she felt at having Olegario killed, the knowledge you could protect someone and they prayed you would and you decided to do something else instead ...... is almost definitely not why Ri-Dul didn't want to start a cult. Probably he had some entirely different problem. "Magical obedience tattoos?" she asks, taking his arm for the next Teleport.

Ri-Dul: "A very clever solution in want of a problem.  I can show you the spell diagrams if we've the leisure, but you won't be able to do them until you reach seventh circle."

"Where to next?  Isfahel of Kelesh, Kasai of Minkai, Quantium of Nex, Oppara of Taldor, Absalom..."

Carissa Sevar: "Absalom's the trickiest and I want to do it last, once I've worked out all the bugs. Let's do Isfahel next."

Ri-Dul: To Isfahel they Teleport, then.

Isfahel, Kelesh: Carissa Sevar's Hell-worshipping sect seems to be illegal in Kelesh, just like the actual Church of Asmodeus, for some odd reason.

Highly illegal.

Like, "not a smart question for foreigners to wander in and ask about" illegal.

This particular squad of city guards was not much of a match for Carissa Sevar let alone Ri-Dul, and they could definitely disguise themselves if they wanted and continue, but there's a question of how to actually locate her worshippers in Kelesh.

Carissa Sevar: Awww, too bad. She'll just Stone Shape her compact into the nearest wall and go, then.

Isfahel, Kelesh: It doesn't even last 24 hours, but several enterprising people copy it down and sell the text for a few coppers to local newssheets, which print it verbatim so that everybody can see the dangerous nonsense that Sevarists believe.

So now all of the actual Sevarists in Isfahel know the compact terms, if that was the goal; and shortly after, most of her followers in all Kelesh.

(They're definitely on board with conquering and ruling at least the Kelesh part of Golarion, if... someone would lend them the raw military power for that?)

Oppara: Taldor, a nation in some ways very nearly identical with its enormous capital city of Oppara, is proverbial for its complexity.  Anybody who knew Taldor could tell you that Taldor would never ban Sevarism, because 'ban Sevarism' fits into two words and is therefore far too simple to be anything that Taldor's government would or even could do in real life.

Modavian: "...felt it wiser to deemphasize the entire - well, all this talk of the mathematics of thinking.  It's strange.  Unaccustomed."

The man speaking, name of Modavian, looks thin, almost to the point of wasting; this lack of bulk is not much ameliorated by his enormous puffy beard and hair.  He seems not much intimidated by Carissa Sevar, the supposed object of admiration of the fanclub that he claims to lead; possibly because he's confident that she lacks much actual pull around here, possibly because he's trying too hard not to act scared, possibly because she's a beautiful young woman.  It's hard to tell with people like him.

Carissa Sevar: "- I see. What have you been emphasizing instead."

Modavian: "Worship of you personally, proclamation of your inevitable deityhood and superiority to all other mortals.  That's a recognized aspect of religious sects, and doesn't make people feel like they're in a cult."

Carissa Sevar: "Can't have people feeling like they're in a cult. What... are these people hoping to accomplish by worshipping me?"

Modavian: "We currently try to downplay talk of 'accomplishing' things, so as more clearly distinguish ourselves from certain Sevarist splinter groups who've taken that as a rallying cry, like the Effective Asmodeans.  To be clear, we try to cultivate an appearance of being allied with the more politically palatable offshoots, but at the same time, we need to clearly distinguish ourselves from them so as to retain our own identity in the eyes of the public."

Carissa Sevar: ".....okay, so, in public messaging, you're not talking too much about accomplishing things. But.... privately, what are you trying to accomplish."

Modavian: "Maneuvering our sect into a position of greater political influence in Oppara...?" he says in the tones of somebody confused about what other life goals anybody could possibly have.

Carissa Sevar: "...."

Carissa Sevar: "And is that what the splinter cults are trying to achieve too?"

Modavian: "No, they're much more politically naive.  To give you some idea of how naive they are, some of them have allied themselves with the Greens, the color currently in power, even though everybody with any sense knows that the color not in power tends to be more generous towards its supporters.  Their cozying up to the Greens made it substantially more difficult for sensible people like myself to bribe some Green senators to denounce you as a threat to Taldor's sovereignty, which is how I was able to get the Blue faction to endorse you as probably a better ruler than Prince Stavian, which in turn ensures that Prince Stavian can't suppress Sevarism without looking weak and fearful of us and risking Blue riots.  The post-Sevarists are even more firmly Blue, though they would generally be considered an enemy of Sevarism in the eyes of everybody except the general public which can't tell the difference.  But a serious and ongoing problem is that the so-called This Part Of Taldor, which split off from post-Sevarism, contains multiple openly Green luminaries."

"I am genuinely concerned that Sevarism may start to be seen as apolitical, which is to say, without political defenders or allies; and the so-called Mathematical Sevarists have not been helping by going around saying that Sevarism should be apolitical.  Oh, they don't use those words but it's what they mean."

Carissa Sevar: "....tell me more about the Mathematical Sevarists."

Modavian: "Well, they're practically wizards, is the problem.  Or worse, wizard wannabes, rather than actual wizards who at least have wealth and influence to make up for the immense facepunchability of having wealth and influence while being neither nobles nor gladiators.  They're openly supported by, and allied with, a sixth-circle wizard who lives near but not in the capital and doesn't have any color allegiance, which is nearly the worst look imaginable for Sevarism.  Their political doctrine, insofar as they even have one, is that the Reds, Whites, Greens, and Blues are all... I can't even remember how they put it, because my mind is wincing away from it too hard.  That all of the color factions are ultimately just chariot-racing fans?  They are extremely 'cower' rather than 'strut', if you take my meaning.  If I could have them all killed tomorrow I absolutely would."

Carissa Sevar: "I'll see what I can do," she says dryly. "I was here to ensure that my sect leaders possessed the full text of my compact with Asmodeus, and to buy souls if there are sellers, but it seems like the game you are playing is too sophisticated for the compact with Asmodeus, or Hell itself, to feature much in it."

Modavian: "We've been downplaying most talk about Hell and Asmodeus, for obvious political reasons.  But you making a clear statement that I am the leader of your sect here, and other groups should fall in line behind me, seems like it could bring at least the Mathematical Sevarists into line.  And while the Effective Asmodeans deny your divinity, I think they do respect you a good deal... at least some of them, anyways."

Carissa Sevar: "I will go talk to these other sects and see what I think of them.

What, uh, are all of the sects."

Modavian: "They're not sects, they're splinter groups -"

"Ahem.  The Effective Asmodeans are by far the largest, most popular, best-funded offshoot of ours, though most of them would deny that they're an offshoot of Sevarism and, to be fair, may have no idea that they are.  Their doctrine is 'Do the Most Evil' and by that they mean, use Aura Sight on groups being paid or supported in doing Evil things, in order to measure the number of alignment shifts from Good to Neutral or Neutral to Evil, and use that to determine the most cost-effective ways of producing alignment shift per gold piece.  Though they tend to restrict their investigations to legal and politically popular activities, of course.  At present, their most effective intervention has been determined to be supporting women in inducing abortions, for instance by providing them with safe hospices and medical care afterwards, as is very popular with Blues, unpopular with Greens, and impossible to openly oppose without angering the Church of Calistria and getting mysteriously stung to death by wasp swarms."

Carissa Sevar: "...and why are they trying to do the most Evil? As a service to Asmodeus?"

Modavian: "It's more that they advertise themselves as, if somebody else is trying to sponsor the doing of Evil - because they want to go to Axis instead of Heaven, believe themselves to be in need of that, or want to make a visible point about needing it - they can do it by donating to the Effective Asmodeans and get a lot of Evil done per gold piece, in a legal and politically popular way that makes you look good to your friends.  I mean, it's obviously not actually the most service you can to do Asmodeus, He's not going to conquer Golarion that way, except insofar as activities like that make Asmodeanism look more palatable.  A lot of them basically say so?  They get a significant amount of support from Asmodeus's Church, obviously not because Asmodeus's Church doesn't have any better way of doing Evil, but because it helps make Evil look good in Taldor."

Carissa Sevar: " - but why are they doing that, if it's not to serve Asmodeus."

Modavian: "They're serving Asmodeus in a legal, politically popular way that leaves a lot of room for anybody involved to declare afterwards they were really just trying to help young women in trouble, if the whole Sevarism thing doesn't work out, and in fact doesn't require them to be openly Sevarite at all."

Carissa Sevar: "I see. 

What...else."

Modavian: "The second-largest splinter group is post-Sevarists, whose primary doctrines are that you're not a god yet, you haven't conquered even a single country, and Abrogail Thrune is prettier than you.  They also say that your reasoning methods can't reduce all of life to calculation, you can't make real decisions just by assigning numbers to everything without using any intuition, that we shouldn't suppress all of our emotions and replace them with pure cold numbers, and that the whole thing isn't original to you and was mostly copied off Keltham."

Carissa Sevar: "....and those are, uh, doctrinal disputes they have with the other Sevarites?"

Modavian: "No, orthodox Sevarites would agree with all of those claims, but the general public doesn't know that and neither do most post-Sevarites, so it's a very effective message for recruiting more post-Sevarites.  A lot of them also have tragic stories about how they were raised in your sect as children, and ended up permanently stunted by all of the messaging about suppressing your emotions with numbers, or how they were fooled into giving away all of their gold to Effective Asmodeans, or traumatized by believing that everybody suffering in Hell was suffering because they couldn't manage to conquer a single country for you."

Carissa Sevar: " - how old is my sect in Taldor?"

Modavian: "About a month, according to Sevarite orthodoxy, but according to the post-Sevarites it's been hidden inside our country for the last decade.  The current outer face of orthodox Sevarism - if they acknowledge its existence at all - is a smokescreen put up by your true core followers who believe in replacing all of their emotions with numbers."

Carissa Sevar: "...so the people who claimed they were... raised by Sevarites and are so weak they ended up emotionally broken by it... are making that up? Why would anyone make that up? No one would ever associate with someone who was openly that pathetic! If that's the first move of a ploy the second move pretty much has to be dying in a ditch of tuberculosis!"

Modavian: "It's the redemption story that's standard for their sect.  They're claiming that they were that pathetic and are now no longer that pathetic, having been saved by the light of post-Sevarism.  Sevarism is just an extremely popular thing to be 'post', if you see what I'm saying.  Not actual Sevarism, the Sevarism that's been underground in this country for a decade, backed by multiple wealthy wizards, teaching people to replace their emotions with numbers."

"- to be clear, this situation is not my fault, it's one I inherited from my predecessor.  I've been making steady headway on it since then."

Carissa Sevar: Carissa is starting to understand why you might need torture to fix people sometimes. 

"Who else."

Modavian: "I suppose I'd be remiss in not listing This Part Of Taldor, since it contains many influential figures in Opparian Sevarism, but they don't have any doctrines, which is why they just call themselves This Part Of Taldor.  That is, they're people who find themselves drawn to something about the atmosphere of Sevarism, Effective Asmodeanism, and post-Sevarism, but that thing isn't any of the ideas or political positions and they aren't willing to affiliate themselves with those, but they do want to go to the same gatherings as us on a regular basis."

Carissa Sevar: "Do they want to go to Hell."

Modavian: "You'd have to ask them individually because they wouldn't acknowledge any collective position on the topic.  If all of them gave the same answer individually, and they found that out, some of them would probably change theirs to avoid having a collective position."

Carissa Sevar: "I see. And that's everybody?"

Modavian: "The Iomedaen Sevarists want to back you in taking over at least one country that Lawful Evil people could go to live in, so that if they died, they'd get better treatment in Hell, especially women who had to expose their babies and so on.  They're hoping that's much more scalable than current solutions.  Iomedaen Sevarists want as few people as possible to go to Hell, but if they have to go to Hell, they should go to Sevar.  Most of them think it probably can't work, but it'd be so important, if it was true, that they think it has to be tried.  They're led by Calpas, a supposedly reformed ex-mugger."

"Their core doctrine obviously contradicts our own, but at the same time, we try to look as close to them as possible, because that muddies the political waters for anybody trying to paint Sevarists as Asmodean or Evil."

Carissa Sevar: "Have they picked a country they agree I can have?"

Modavian: "Debating which territory is most of what they do during their gatherings, as I understand it."

Carissa Sevar: "I see."

Modavian: "And finally the Mathematical Sevarists claim to be the 'real Sevarism' and go around openly affiliating with wizards, talking about mathematical methods and other such things that offend the public... fundamentally, I'd say that it's Sevarism for people who have no political awareness and no interest in acquiring political awareness and want to feel superior about their own lack of Splendour."

Carissa Sevar: "And their leader, you mentioned, is some wizard?"

Modavian: "Their primary financial backer is Kurshar, a sixth-circle wizard who built himself a tower a mile outside of Oppara, and who's now famous for replying, when somebody asked him why not somewhere more fashionable, 'The land was cheaper there and I can Teleport.'  To give you some idea of what sort of man we're talking about, here."

Carissa Sevar: "How pragmatic. I wonder what he's in it for."

Modavian: "Not his place in Hell, I expect.  He bought his way to Lawful Neutral, and didn't even bother to hide the donations as most people in his position would."

Carissa Sevar: "Well, you never know, maybe Pharasma will revoke that exemption and he'll end up in Hell and wants to hedge his bets."

Modavian: "I rather think if that was the case he'd be backing us!  What he's trying to accomplish by backing the Mathematical Sevarists, I have no idea.  It can't be to make wizards look better, because the fact of wizards backing anybody will make them look bad and then wizards can't gain prestige from backing them."

Carissa Sevar: "Truly a dilemma for wizards."

Modavian: A blank look is replaced by sudden alarm, as though of realizing who he's talking to.  "Oh, nobody thinks of you as a wizard except for post-Sevarists!  You're a nascent goddess and, anyways, real wizards don't look as good as you do."

Carissa Sevar: "Would I be right in imagining that in Taldor, mostly only wizards go to the Worldwound, as it's so far away?"

Modavian: "The... Worldwound?  I'm not particularly aware of what goes on there; I know we have some treaty obligations there, but so far as I know, those are not relevant to real conditions on the ground."

Carissa Sevar: Carissa is going to chalk that up as more evidence for her theory that people can only really think if demons are trying to eat them. "I see. Thank you. I will speak to the other sects, and decide who, if anyone, to announce that I back. The most decisive consideration will probably be who is committed to going to Hell."

Modavian: "I do believe that I am the only leader in question who currently, actually pings alignment detection and registers as Lawful Evil.  The splinter groups, if they ping detection at all, tend Lawful Neutral or, in the case of the Iomedaens, Lawful Good.  The Mathematical Sevarists in particular openly reject that being currently Evil should be a condition for high rank in a Sevarist organization, because of some nonsensical reasoning about incentives.  Of course the post-Sevarists and This Part of Taldor, as don't even pretend to owe you allegiance, would presumably lean Chaotic."

Carissa Sevar: "That seems silly of them, and is certainly a compelling point in your favor! I will see if I can get them straightened out."

Ri-Dul: He'll wait until this... thing is out of hearing range, and then ask, "Would you like to pay me to kill him?"

Carissa Sevar: "Bit hasty, isn't it? Maybe everyone else is even worse!"

Ri-Dul: "Well, in that case, would you like to pay me not to kill him?  It would be somewhat of a default action for me, here."

Carissa Sevar: "No murdering my loyalists for personal reasons, we're on an important mission here. I assure you that if all goes well and he comes to me in Hell I will very patiently rewrite his entire personality."

Ri-Dul: "I had been thinking that I did not quite see the point of any of this.  And now, suddenly, I am thinking of people whom I would pay to Maledict, if by doing so I could send them to you and pay you to rewrite their personalities.  Painfully."

Carissa Sevar: "Oh, there's an audience I'm not yet serving!! People who would Maledict their enemies if only Hell took more specific service requests! We should start some rumors about that, though probably not yet, if anyone jumps the gun I won't get their offering. Maybe when we make rounds again in a couple of weeks. 

Where's this wizard who runs the maybe-not-hopeless Sevarite cult?"

Oppara: This situation (as is so often the case in Taldor) is only going to look even more and more complicated as Carissa Sevar investigates it further.

...possibly a lot of the problem here is that Sevarism in Taldor does not have a clear agenda that lines up with anybody's personal incentives?  In Vudra, at least, there was something of a map onto Lawful Evil Irorism and there being a place for those people to go that wasn't Asmodean Hell, and a daily activity of self-refinement that the monks there could readily recognize.  In Taldor, the closest thing to a clear agenda that makes sense in terms of anybody's direct goals, is Iomedaen Sevarism, which doesn't want anybody in Hell in the first place, and therefore would like Carissa Sevar to conquer a country as soon as possible.

What does Carissa Sevar think her followers in Taldor are supposed to do?  People will ask her this question with the air of somebody who never thinks to question, for a fraction of a second, that Carissa Sevar must have built this whole cult for herself on purpose and had some purpose in mind for it.

Carissa Sevar: Ahahahaha yes absolutely, that's what happened. 

Carissa Sevar wants her cult in Taldor to sell her their souls. ...can she get away with that, though, or is it pushing them too far?

Oppara: It would help if there was some account of why, a larger plan into which this fits, a reason why this would be in anybody's self-interest (or other-interest, if Good).  People in Oppara are inclined to ask 'What's in it for me?' about as often as people do in Cheliax, but without the sense that defying orders will get them immediately lit on fire.

Carissa Sevar: She's going to ascend in - don't tell anyone, she tells them, knowing they'll immediately tell everyone - between four months and a year, depending how long it takes her to make some arrangements that'll be easier to make as a human than as a god. She expects that at that time, her cult will swell enormously as people realize it was real all along. As a new god, she'll be limited, but those who she owns she'll be able to easily work through, grant cleric levels, send visions, and command in her glorious conquest.

Oppara: People who seem willing to strongly believe this for purposes of shouting about it, will seem to sort of... suddenly back off, when it comes to selling their souls to Hell, on the basis of the promise that Carissa Sevar will be there to take care of them afterwards.

One gets the impression that a lot of Sevarists would sell their souls to her in exchange for large amounts of money, if they could be certain that Carissa Sevar would be there to receive them, and hammer them stronger.  Not all of her cult, not even half of her cult, but a quarter of it, maybe.  But - without that certainty - people are afraid even to go Lawful Evil, let alone sell their souls.

(The Mathematical Sevarists hold that this is a totally reasonable way for somebody to act given their current incentives and the payoff matrices.)

...she can find at least some people who think they're going to an Evil afterlife anyways, given their past decisions and realistic unlikelihood to do enough Good to work their way out from under.  Some people who'll sell out for a couple of thousand gold pieces, so they can at least live in wealth they never imagined for the rest of their lives, and maybe maybe maybe there'll be Somebody who cares about them, when that life ends.

It would probably be somewhere around five percent of all her followers in Taldor, if she had time to hunt more of them down.

Carissa Sevar: She really only needs, like, two, to ensure spies conclude she's sincere about the Evil, and Keltham doesn't in fact have infinite money so fewer is better.

The rest she'll charge with spreading the word. It might be the hopelessly muddled word, but probably whatever the best lie is to spread among Taldane people, that one will spread the farthest.

Oppara: Taldor is absolutely on spreading whichever hopelessly muddled or even completely imaginary version of Sevarism has the highest rate of people thinking it's cool to talk about or more likely derogate!

In fact, there's a fair number of Sevarists on board who came to join up with the imaginary decade-old version of Sevarism that post-Sevarists criticize, since that's the version that the greatest number of Taldorians have now heard about!  They're patiently waiting to get into the hidden inner circle where they'll be taught to replace their emotions with numbers.

Carissa Sevar: - you know what? Fine. If they want into the secret inner circle they need to listen to this lecture and then tell her what they learned from it.

She delivers the lecture she gave PIlar's ilani candidates about how to stop being muddled and made up of internal contradictions you're not looking at properly and adds some extemporizing about how to do things because they actually achieve your goals instead of just because they make it easier to look away from your own weakness.

Oppara: This probably works a lot better with an additional 6 native Intelligence points and some sort of, you know, artifact headband to wear on top of that.

People are very enthusiastic about this message.  Able to tell her what they learned from it, in their own words?  Give a valid example of somewhere in their previous life where they could apply it?  Not so much.

Carissa Sevar: Well, it was worth a shot. They should recite it to themselves every night before they sleep and when it makes sense to them they should come and tell her and then they'll be admitted into the inner circle.

Oppara: Several talented wizard apprentices have now heard about her harem of submissive mathematicians and would like to join that or at least, uh, try out for it.

Carissa Sevar: Do they have any actual mathematical talent?

Oppara: ...possibly this one does?  Second-circle at eighteen is relatively impressive for Taldor where they don't ever torture the students or at least not seriously.

Carissa Sevar: Sure. Do they have the spells on hand to Petrify that one and Shrink Item them into a small statue she can keep in her pocket until a more convenient time to induct him as a trainee ilani.

Ri-Dul: ...he doesn't actually have Shrink Item prepped but can fit a whole statue in his... personal storage.

He is not commenting on anything so hard right now.

Carissa Sevar: She is not the slightest bit interested in ever having an intimate relationship ever again, unless you count murdering Abrogail! She just thinks that carrying around the statues of your slaves is the sort of thing an aspiring Evil goddess should do!

Ri-Dul: He didn't say anything.  He didn't even give any expressive looks.  If Sevar feels a need to defend herself, it's because she knows what she did.

Carissa Sevar: ...slave stored away for later! Anything else to do in Taldor? Do they have time to hit another city before they're expected back in Indapatta?

Indapatta: Actually no, it's going to be sunset in Vudra pretty soon.