Sevar should have foreseen this annoying fucking consequence of giving him that planned story about her sexuality.  Abrogail herself should have seen it coming, really.  It's a stereotypically Good thing to say and his Good society would absolutely have programmed that particular whiny complaint into everybody from childhood.  It's just not easy to think like that.

Isidre inclines her head.  "And you're wondering why we didn't just kidnap you here directly from the Worldwound and not make any agreements with you first, if that's how we operate?"

It's very obvious why they wouldn't do that, especially if they were okay with sacrificing a few souls to Abaddon if that became necessary; namely, to keep Keltham cooperative at the start.  "This would be my own primary objection to societies that are Good instead of Lawful, and from my perspective no society on Golarion is remotely Lawful.  There was also a certain tendency, in dath ilan, for the very smart people who are smarter than the other people to also lean more Good - but kept sensible, in our own case, by Law that those very smart people comprehend far better than I do.  I get along fine with Carissa, and expect to get along fine with my other research group members.  I am concerned that perhaps the upper rank of Chelish Governance is a little too Good for me."

Why is her life like this.

"In theory," Isidre says, unperturbed, "there's a set of complicated replies here, and in practice, a much simpler one.  In theory, for example, you arrived at the Worldwound, which is itself governed by treaties that Cheliax signed and indeed had a primary hand in designing; we could not have stopped you from walking out on us there, and so it was reasonable to offer you guarantees to come away from the Worldwound to Cheliax proper.  In theory, our government has never said to Carissa Sevar at any point that we would not sacrifice her if that becomes necessary; it's not that we'd be violating a rule around her, but that it's understood that this sort of thing might unfortunately happen, because all of Golarion is in a far more precarious situation than dath ilan.  In principle, if Sevar had been disturbed enough by that, she could have tried to sign a compact with the government saying otherwise, which we would have kept if signed; but Sevar would have needed to find something to make it worth our while to sign that compact, and it would have been pointless and expensive and not really worth it.  And if you ask why Sevar didn't go to a country with more rules instead, my reply would be that, while there are some countries with many more rules, they are not good ones, and also that moving countries is expensive in Golarion and not just in the cost of the teleport.  In the understandings that exist in Golarion, Cheliax is starting with you from scratch, not from the sort of relationship we had with Sevar as a citizen, where it's understood that we can sacrifice her if necessary for some much larger benefit."

"In practice, the actual and much simpler reply is that the revelation from Asmodeus which led to this project's establishment said, or at least, we think this is what Asmodeus was trying to say, to not pull any of that on you.  So no such discussion was ever entertained at any level of government.  If you're looking for a simple answer that doesn't require you to worry about backroom discussions by people like me, it's right there, I suppose.  Possibly that's why Asmodeus ordained it so, if you feel that way.  I don't think we would have decided to unsheathe blades at you, absent His order, but I can see His order simplifying things from your perspective."

"You might be well served at some point by contemplating in more detail why Asmodeus found it necessary to do that, and pay out what I gather to be very limited communications capacity on doing that.  He would not have needed to do it in dath ilan, for all that dath ilan is supposedly a Good country and Cheliax is supposedly an Evil one.  But, yeah, I'm glad Asmodeus had his act together there."

Isidre inclines her head again.  "As you say, and yes, you may well be right.  We are very aware of how far short we fall of Asmodeus's wisdom."

That couldn't actually be the reason for Asmodeus's instructions, could it?  No, it has to be some pre-existing godagreement, or a bargain with Abadar and Nethys whose initial premise was that they cooperated to bring Keltham here and Cheliax got first crack at him, or one of the other likely possibilities that Aspexia reluctantly discussed (reluctantly because Aspexia would rather that Abrogail shut up and follow His orders).  Absent those instructions, Cheliax most certainly could have gotten compliance out of Keltham, regardless of his society's silly pretense of a godlike immunity to threats -

And now Keltham is thinking about how the other possibility would've played out, whether he could commit suicide using a Create Water cantrip or other tools that his god could unilaterally give him.  But Cheliax could just raise you, then, poor fool; Miracle doesn't require consent.  The only danger would be if Abadar could instruct Osirion to raise Keltham before Cheliax could, and Cheliax would know it was in a race and they would have that information first -

Now Keltham is also thinking about Raise Dead, and thinking about the story Carissa gave him about oaths, and how he could if necessary break an oath over something trivial, unilaterally in a way that nobody else depended on so it wouldn't actually violate the ~~~~~~~~~~, and so go to Abaddon.

Keltham expects to - just end up somewhere else, if he did that?  But he knows he might not and this doesn't faze him.  He'd literally rather go to Abaddon than comply.  True death doesn't scare him as much as it scares some dath ilani, he's thinking now, and - he's not even imagining Cheliax severely torturing him in a scary way to which he'd prefer nonexistence, the thought that they could break him with torture still hasn't occurred to him, he'd just walk out on this entire universe and existence itself rather than accept a forced unfair division of gains from trade, because if you can't do that, why would anybody bother bargaining fairly with you.

He wouldn't actually have been able to do it, if Cheliax was running Detect Thoughts on him, and not otherwise restrained by Asmodeus.  They've ever had experience with uncooperative torture victims.  You don't instantly end up in Abaddon and instantly get eaten.

...but maybe, just maybe, Abrogail feels the tiniest shred of respect for Keltham at this point.  That degree of 'fuck you' is something she can appreciate.

Of course now she wants even more to see what Keltham's mind would look like when it broke, but Asmodeus said not to do that so she won't.

See, Keltham's lips are moving again and Carissa's getting confused about the nature of Good and Evil again, it's getting to be a pattern. Lastwall wouldn't hand her over, probably - why? 'simplifies cooperation with people like Keltham' jumps to mind as an explanation with Fox's Cunning up, in a way it wouldn't jump to mind otherwise. But obviously the Good gods do sacrifice people to horrible fates to achieve their goals ....what's the difference? Is it just that Good gets incredibly worked up about rape in particular?

Why did Asmodeus tell them to cooperate with Keltham? It's one of three important glaring confusions right now, along with "what is Maillol in trouble for" because Carissa suspects she's probably in trouble for the same thing, even if they're going to punish them one at a time about it, and "what does Cayden Cailean want" which she's trying not to think about but which feels salient since they're talking about, you know, Good and whether they sacrifice people to be raped if it achieves their long goals...

Maillol, presumably, is having the sort of bad day that can only be achieved by simultaneously pissing off Aspexia Rugatonn, Contessa Lrilatha, and Gorthoklek.  Oh, don't worry, my dear, my personal order of Irori monks won't blame you much, despite your obvious complicity in the error; they're hardly expecting you to manage me, what with my having ordered transcripts of your thoughts.

And besides, your natural and self-inflicted punishment is about to come due anyways.

"May I raise the final topic?" Isidre says.  "Other thoughts may, I hope, be thought by you after; other duties will soon call me."

"Let me finish up my current thought..."

"Go ahead."

"It requires some exposition to introduce with context, though hopefully not as much as the source of your mysterious patterns in Golarion.  First, the thought occurs to me that dath ilan, as a far more Lawful society, may perhaps not have the phenomenon we refer to as 'rumors', in which people manage to - accidentally, more or less, though sometimes also purposefully, invent stories and tell them to each other, hearing one thing and saying another and not really keeping track of things -"

"In almost any place and organization in Golarion, you will find a large number of people running around believing things that are not true, that bear at best a tenuous connection to reality, or no connection at all, stories that got repeatedly passed around and distorted.  I would guess that dath ilan prevents this, somehow, I can't actually imagine how, which means it might never occur to you that something people were whispering excitedly to each other might not be true."

(Carissa's not sure where Isidre is going with this but recommends not pushing Keltham on Carissa-related or kink-related things any further, he's off balance in the way that generally signifies not wanting to have sex and not thinking through the lens of what's sexy, and while pushing him off-balance was much of the goal here, once achieved they should back off.)

Hmmm.  Difficult to work past and still achieve her goals, but not impossible.

"I have literally any experience with false social beliefs on account of having once been a six-year-old boy, I suppose; and some abstract understanding of the phenomenon as a bad equilibrium that motivates precautions to avoid it.  But yes, adults who follow simple epistemic hygiene procedures are not subject to that phenomenon."

"I think if I heard anything really ridiculous, I would have managed to distrust that on grounds of Golarion generally seeming to have epistemic problems, but your caution is well-taken.  You're right, that might not have occurred to me.  Is there some particular 'rumor' circulating that you're concerned I might have believed?"

Keltham is, of course, already considering the proposition that this dire 'rumor', whatever it is, is going to be completely true.

"As of yesterday before the assault started, a rumor began inside your project - which rumor is false, to the best of my own knowledge, which knowledge I would in this case expect to be accurate - that the Queen of Cheliax is sleeping with your girlfriend."

That was absolutely not a -

.....a large number of things click into place at once. 

Maillol requested an eighth-circle caster and someone with extremely high Splendour to have a conversation with Keltham about Carissa Sevar. The palace found one inside four hours. One, not two; there isn't an invisible person with Detect Thoughts somewhere telepathically bonded to Isidre and passing along Carissa's thoughts with impressively little delay. There isn't a random countess Carissa's never heard of who's read all the project transcripts. 

There's just Her Imperial Majestrix, certainly the highest Splendour they could find on such short notice. Presumably not literally just here to fuck with Carissa, that'd be taking pride a little far, but certainly going to fuck with Carissa while she's here. As she is entitled to. Because she can do whatever she wants.

(Carissa isn't exactly surprised by, but does admire, the perfectly straight face 'Isidre' has been keeping for the last twenty seconds.)

She ever learns!  Look at that.

Why yes, dear, while all our eighth-circle wizards are currently on the front lines with Nidal, there is an eighth-circle sorcerer remaining with incredibly high Splendour who would enjoy having a chat about Carissa Sevar's sexuality and, oh, yes, that other topic you requested be introduced.

So nice of you to write such a perfectly targeted request, less than 12 hours after my personal order of Irori monks had arduously, painstakingly badgered me into agreeing to not bother you again unless and until my strictly conventional duties to Cheliax called for that.

The first thought to cross Keltham's mind is why the Queen of Cheliax needs to use Sevar as a cuddle pillow, as cuddlesome as she is in that regard, before it clicks to him that if you have sex in bedrooms then 'sleeping with' is probably a euphemism for sex.

The second thought is to ask whether this rumor is perhaps true.

It admittedly does in fact sound a lot more like the sort of thing that would be passed around six-year-old kids, than would make very much sense in real life, but even in Golarion, presumably, the people who pass around rumors like that are probably running their own sanity checks at all, and think it's not completely obviously false?

"Does the rumor say it's consensual or a pharaoh-of-Osirion situation?" Keltham inquires.  He is putting any flashes of anger on hold pending evaluation of probabilities.

Presumably the Queen has realized this but Keltham will in fact attempt to leave Cheliax with Carissa on the spot if he thinks -

(Carissa's going to have an awful afternoon but Keltham is protective of her isn't that adorable)

"I - do not know offhand whether the rumor is even bothering to say."

"I'm glad to see that you are not apparently - the kind of man who would consider his own honor mortally insulted, or Carissa's appeal to him ruined, by the mere existence of the rumor itself, which - which I did not expect to be your reaction, given everything I knew about dath ilan, but is a very common way for men to think in countries outside Cheliax -"

"It's really incredibly extremely unlikely to be true, Keltham, that's something I'm in a position to know, and I know it.  I'm prepared to swear you my oath on that if required."