Disquieting.  Still, I think we have little choice but to proceed as if we have not yet wandered off Nethys's road.  I hope He returns to us before we leave it fully.

They're so eager to work with Keltham.  So ready for everything Keltham could offer them.  They want so much to be his Civilization, wanted it long before Keltham came here, and all they lack, they believe, are the things that Aktun is forbidden to tell them, that Keltham knows.

What happens when Keltham reaches Osirion is going to break their heart.

Assuming we are still sufficiently on Nethys's pathways that Keltham enters Osirion at all.  The divergences have already begun.

What of it?

I am tempted to meddle.  After so much, much time of having to conserve our strength and choose our opportunities, running around doing things is quite addictive.  I observe the mortals so closely and I find Myself thinking, 'Is there some way I could meddle and make it go less sadly for these few mortals personally?  I like them.'

Not to go all Lawful Good on you, Cayden, but to agonize over the hurt feelings of a handful of souls you've spied upon, in the light of other stakes and other costs, seems too Chaotic Good even for Me.

But go ahead and meddle, if you can find any way to do it that promotes the interests of Pharasma and Asmodeus relative to what would've happened otherwise.  And our own interests, of course.  And keeps to Nethys's road while it lasts.  And doesn't give away exactly what's playing out to opposed gods like Abadar.

I keep thinking to myself that I need another drink, and yet, I cannot imagine how much mead would be enough to deal with this crap.

Before Carissa gets back to Keltham's current suite, she's intercepted by a Security who informs her that Maillol is, if not exactly fully functional, functional enough to receive her handoff.  Sevar keeps going out of contact and that's not fun for Project Lawful.

Understood. (They should really be training a Carissa impersonator to substitute for her but also it's very much to her advantage that she thinks they don't have anyone.)

...that means she should also probably take her punishment before she goes back to Keltham, and she's currently in the wrong mental state for it, namely euphoric and full of giddy terror, but she's not actually the out-of-control child Abrogail seems to think, she can talk herself around. She trots over to the temple and contemplates dath ilani Lawful Evil, which they do tell stories about apparently, Evil Keepers who wield the Law for their own benefit. She wants to be that. Cheliax doesn't understand dath ilan but it does understand how to harden Evil in someone's heart, how to turn human weaknesses in so they feed Evil impulses not Good ones. She needs that. And she deserves punishment, because she erred, and doesn't want to blunder through the world unpunished until she faces the ultimate punishment for an error too big to overlook. Asmodeus said to punish her as his Law requires, because otherwise she'll err too far before reality shows up to correct her. 

Keltham has her childish, stupid heart, because he's rich and powerful and willing to walk away from Cheliax over her and it's very cute, but Cheliax owns her body and soul, and this is, in the evaluation of a system designed for punishing weakness and building Evil in human hearts, what she needs. 

There, that's better. She will just have to not let all that Asmodean conviction be shaken by the sight of Maillol. 

If you weren't Chelish you wouldn't be able to tell that Maillol is shaken, hurting, doesn't have it fully together, and keeps trying to figure out if there's some way he can be not on this project.  Having been the recipient of two visions from Asmodeus makes it effectively impossible; he may know, now, things that he can't put into words.

Maillol wants to be not on Project Lawful when it hits day 4.  Day 3 was, in fact, past his limit.

The sight of Sevar, looking not particularly emotional, not that he'd be able to tell if she has her own act together, does not please him.  Even knowing how much Sevar, who helped make this bed, is probably also going to have to lie in it, with the Queen, for longer, there is still a flash of hatred in him, for her having not saved him from what was almost entirely his own mistake.

(Maillol has not been informed of what actually happened there, and very very few people in Abrogail Thrune's dominion ever will be.  Spreading such gossip about Her Infernal Majestrix, if you are a Security reading Sevar's thoughts, say, is the kind of conduct that gets you turned into a statue, or sent to whatever other fate is your worst realizable fear.)

He accepts the project handoff, questions Sevar about a few of the Keltham budget items she approved, thinking and talking mostly on reflex.

What does he think of the possibility of demonstrating Suggestion to Keltham with his advance consent, probably having Lrilatha do it because he finds it credible that she obeys Asmodeus directly, and then swearing to him it hasn't been done otherwise, in order to get him to agree an adversarial Cheliax would be running rings around him with mind control.

Maillol has to think hard about this, and strain bruised portions of his mind.  What was Asmodeus's will?  He said not to enchant Keltham.  Did He really convey exactly that, when He spoke not at all in words?  It's hard to blank out all of your own guesses about what Asmodeus could be planning, what Asmodeus could have intended, to ask what Asmodeus meant, when what you need is to hear what Asmodeus told you to do, and the concepts and bounds set around it were neither your own nor mortal at all.

"I'll authorize it," he says.  "Make sure you tell Keltham exactly what you're going to do, get his permission for exactly that, do exactly that, no tricks, no games, no cleverness, no taking advantages, nothing else you're trying to accomplish on the side, as if Keltham could read your own thoughts down to the depth of your soul, and don't assume that Contessa Lrilatha already knows that, tell it to her anyways."  Maillol is writing down those instructions, even as he speaks, they cannot be entrusted to memory.

"I understand. Thank you."

Right. That's that over with, then. 

She notices herself trying to think of something else to say, and makes herself turn and walk away towards the torture chamber.

Children tend superstitious - it's worse if you cry, it's worse if you don't, it's worse if you seem scared. Carissa's not a child. She doesn't know the heart of whoever's on staff, she doesn't know what they enjoy seeing, it probably doesn't matter very much. The benefits don't derive from the punishment being executed exactly correctly; anything that requires that much finesse can only happen in Hell. There is to a first approximation nothing at all she can do that will matter. 

It lasts a lot longer. At least Carissa thinks so, she never actually asked how long the bag lasted. This had a duration written neatly on the scroll she turned in. And she's pretty sure it's longer, because her voice is much, much hoarser, and her face much stickier with snot and tears, and she gets tired, in a way she doesn't think she has before, random uninjured muscles screaming about having been tense for so long.

It'll be worse in Hell. 

She understands her mistakes better. She won't make them again. There isn't another way to get this result; dath ilan tries to do everything with rewards, but that just builds stunted little Good people who'd go to Abaddon rather than not get their fair share of a deal. 

Carissa would never, ever go to Abaddon. If you told her this was all that was left to her forever, more of this, she wouldn't go to Abaddon. She is strong where the people of dath ilan are weak; she can live in worlds they can't. 

She hopes someone is reading her mind because she requests healing adequate to conceal signs of injury from Keltham but can't seem to make her mouth move right now.

Sevar's still in the middle of important work and the palace torture room has a fairly serious priest on staff, even with the war; and also with the war on, fewer people are being tortured in the palace than usual.

Cure Moderate Wounds.  Restoration.  Have a nice day.

Right. Keltham. Her Keltham-feelings have been all burned out, which is good, she didn't even remember to focus on that. Maybe love is just the kind of emotion that automatically dies faced with anything real.

She washes her face and fixes her hair and goes back to Keltham.

Keltham has no idea that Carissa was in a much better mood half an hour earlier.

He asks how her Security screening went.  That took a while.

"It did, they were way more thorough than usual, spent a bunch of time on asking me trick questions under a Truth Spell which I must say is kind of unpleasant, and they made me do everything with the headband off and with it on. - I'm not actually complaining, it feels like all the security Cheliax knows how to throw at a thing like this just barely might be adequate for the actual stakes. 

I did get the chance to ask about whether the absolutely-no-messing-with-Keltham-no-matter-how-justified-it-looks order would permit consensually demonstrating to you mind-control spells, and the person who was the direct recipient of Asmodeus's vision thought yes with enough precautions and advance communication, so if that's something you want to see demonstrated, seems to be allowed."

"Seems a little scary, the mind-control experiment I mean, but you gotta be able to do slightly scary things that seem clearly necessary, and that one does.  Let's move forwards on it... no, first I want your own direct opinion on whether they're going to be able to find someone to run the experiment who is really actually extremely that trustworthy."

"One of the precautions was it'd be Contessa Lrilatha. I think she's that trustworthy anyway but with a direct order from Asmodeus involved there's no question."

"That'd do it."  Keltham is actually slightly impressed - that was better than he'd visualized being possible to get, himself.

Keltham has met with Isidre again!  Many things were discussed of which he can only tell Carissa some right away (so as not to give her impression that the parts he's talking about were all that happened).  Isidre does think it's safe to ask Carissa some direct questions of the 'what happens if I do this?' type.

Carissa'd be happy to answer those.

Okay!  Uh, for a start, Keltham's going to do the thing where some questions matter more than others but he's going to mix them up to not make it too blatant what sort of answers he's looking for.  He doesn't know if they have the sort of relationship where Keltham can do that without explicitly announcing it, which is better, obviously, in terms of not biasing the subject.  Do they have the sort of relationship where Keltham can do that sort of thing, and it's okay so long as Carissa gets told about the shenanigans within a reasonably short time afterwards?

(He's so - not cute. Contemptible, not cute.)

"Yes, you can do that. I don't even particularly feel wronged if you try to conceal which questions you care about the most and then don't tell me afterwards you were doing that, in Cheliax sometimes people are just doing that and it's considered fair enough."

"I mean, in dath ilan, sometimes they don't tell you for years what the experiment was about, but there's explicit understandings there that I didn't want to assume would automatically carry over to Golarion and you."

"Also, I just realized that I went and asked 'is it okay if...' instead of ordering you to tell me the consequences of something, sorry, brain tired from Isidre discussion, I think for tonight I may ask... I think for tonight I'm ordering you to take the questions I ask in dath ilani speech patterns and reinterpret them to be about me ordering you to tell me things, I don't intend on doing that all the time but that was a tiring conversation and it's been a day."

Hypothetical: what happens if Keltham managed to hurt Carissa enough that she yelled 'Stop!' without realizing what she was doing, and then Keltham reacted to that by immediately removing her from her chains even if Carissa apologized and said to continue.  Obviously that's not going to break Carissa or anything, Keltham wants to know the hypothetical effects on their relationship, is Carissa turned off, confused, is it generally good or bad for them.