Most of the students have an illusion spell prepped and some have two, which amounts to 12 of them.

"All right, let's plan to only spend half of those 12 in case I've got even more brilliant ideas later.  Let's try cycle one of that, attempted manipulation followed by perception.  Meritxell, you're up first."

Carissa remembers to slow down and take a deep breath before she rounds the corner that leads to the library. If she comes running in looking like something intensely confusing and life-changing just happens, then - if she were the kind of person who even might do that, then Asmodeus would've had nothing to say to her. She slows down and rounds the corner at the brisk walk of someone who is late, but doesn't mind that much, but does intend to get where she's going.

If Carissa had come from another place, a place with wristwatches where people more commonly checked the time, she might have realized that in just a few more minutes, it would be exactly the same time of day as when she had first run into Keltham, yesterday, at the Worldwound.

And she might have worried...

That...

Not enough interesting things had happened to her over the last 24 hours.

Just coming out of invisibility, heading away from the library, are a man and a woman.  The man is pale, thin, tall, clad in simple tight black robes with red trim, with a magical-looking mace belted at his side.  He wears a cheerful joking grin, the sort that might seem genuinely humorous to anyone outside of Cheliax who had never been to Cheliax or met anyone from Cheliax.  He's attractive in a way that requires at least 18 Charisma, and radiates a dark male magnetism which promises that, while this man will definitely kill you once he's finished with you, he will show you quite a good time first.

Beside him is a taller and paler and older woman in elaborate layered dress, black with wide red fringes and tassels, themselves ornamented in gold and rubies, with a horned crown on her head wrought of twisted platinum.

She is identifiable to any informed Chelish citizen as a personage second only to Her Infernal Majestrix Abrogail Thrune II on the list of people who could have everyone in this building killed on a whim, Aspexia Rugatonn, the Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus.

Carissa kneels, immediately, before she has actually thought all the way through questions like "what is she doing here" and "what am I doing here" and "am I sure that's her" and "did she talk to Keltham" which seems like the kind of thing that would've been a disaster, but she must be here to talk to Keltham, why else - 

- well, maybe just to lay the Forbiddance, Forbiddance is permanent and can only be dispelled by a more powerful caster which is to say, if the Grand High Priestess Aspexia Rugatonn cast it, that it can't be -

- Carissa has recently concluded that she needs to get more ambitious, that being small isn't safe anymore, but she still dearly hopes as she kneels that Grand High Priestess Aspexia Rugatonn's business here has absolutely nothing to do with her.

Aspexia Rugatonn, Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus, measures the woman kneeling before her with a careful eye and a half-dozen magics.  If Carissa Sevar is an exceptional woman in ways beyond a native talent for wizardry, this is not yet evident.  But then, if Sevar was that self-evidently extraordinary, she'd have been fast-tracked more than she was.

There are not many times when Asmodeus intervenes directly in Cheliax; Aspexia prefers not to be ignorant about any of them.  She is knowledgeable of history and secrets, though, and so less confused by this intervention than others might be.  While other possible readings exist, the degree to which Church and Queen have been ordered not to take the initiative in originating actions impinging on Carissa Sevar are suggestive of circumstances having triggered some divine compact to which Asmodeus is signatory.  The divine view of reality and negotiation gives more prominence than mortals do to notions of 'leaving things alone to become as they would otherwise have been'; perhaps because gods have been able to formulate a sensible notion of what that means between themselves, where mortals could not.

An obvious further guess is that this compact's signatories include Irori among their number, and that Asmodeus is contesting with Irori for Carissa Sevar's soul in some ancient challenge governed by rules.  Though if Carissa Sevar is wavering between Lawful Neutrality and Lawful Evil, Asmodeus is being unsubtle in His blandishments - the temptations more seem like inducements that would be offered to a soul already standing on Asmodean ground, not a soul wavering between a choice of paths.  Overt blandishments for a soul to set proudly aside, while being more covertly tempted by a sense of being treated as important and valuable?  Perhaps.  Carissa Sevar's eidetically reported reaction seems not particularly expected of a nascent follower of Irori, but that could be a masquerade.  Sevar has not been mindread more than she would be otherwise; they are not to be proactive about her correction.

Someone else in Aspexia's position might wonder whether Asmodeus would be pleased, if she disobeyed Asmodeus's orders in order to preemptively insinuate temptations to Sevar, show her how important she could be, before Sevar had sought out theological instruction of her own accord.  Such actions on a mortal's initiative would not, could not, cause Asmodeus to be in direct violation of divine compact.

Aspexia does not even consider it.  One of the foremost ways in which a Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus is shaped, is to predictably not behave in ways that make it more expensive for Asmodeus to keep His compacts.  Improvising circles around your orders can rather tend do that.  If Aspexia was the kind of priestess to circumvent her orders, Asmodeus would have needed to take that nature into account in choosing her orders. 

More importantly, when you are Asmodeus's priestess, the first and foremost thing you do is what Asmodeus has told you to do.

In the situation as Aspexia Rugatonn mostly suspects it to be, a contest triggered between Asmodeus and Irori, there are many words that could be spoken to Carissa Sevar to benefit Asmodeus.  There is a beastly, fleshly impulse that wants to find some excuse to maneuver Carissa into asking for instruction, to arrange the situation so that Carissa Sevar chooses to seek her descent into darkness - to win, herself, the challenge against Irori, to Asmodeus's glory.

There is not the slightest chance that Aspexia Rugatonn will skirt the rules to try any of that.  She's been told not to be proactive, and that is a plain instruction: hands off, don't speak to Sevar unless spoken to, Sevar is to cast aside her own will and not have it stripped from her.  One of the many glorious benefits of being an Asmodean is that you can just follow orders.

There are also other possibilities for why her Lord would have instructed them so.  Sevar's soul may have had hidden value great enough that trying to exchange it for permanent arcane sight would have been too unbalanced a trade, and failed; and Asmodeus may not have wished this fact revealed to Sevar herself.  Or Asmodeus may have some incomprehensible preference about this particular soul, it may have some ancient shape sentimental to Him, for which reason Asmodeus desires Carissa Sevar to come to Him in Hell and put aside her will of her own accord.  There may be some benign process underway which would be interfered with by Sevar gaining arcane sight, and interfered with by other actions natural to Chelish agencies, which Asmodeus desires to be left alone to proceed to its foreseeable outcome.

Or there may be many things going on at once, many pots that Asmodeus has in the fire, that His orders impact simultaneously.

By simply obeying her orders and not improvising, Aspexia can avoid interfering with her Lord's plans in any of those cases.

Some of the apparent confusion of these orders may be due to how Hell rendered down Asmodeus's will into words.  Asmodeus's thoughts are too great for mortals to know, and reflect truths unspeakable in this world under divine compacts.  Having those thoughts pass through a succession of devils, each younger and stupider and less bound by the compacts than the last, does not in any way surpass this fundamental barrier between start and finish; and if this were not so, all of Asmodeus's instructions would be passed by way of Hell.  Then any process by which Hell tries to translate Asmodeus's thoughts into mortal language must inevitably change, and indeed, mutilate, those thoughts.  There are both advantages and disadvantages of that process, compared to a direct divine revelation:  On the one hand, there are wiser devils in Hell to oversee the initial stages of translation; but on the other hand, by the time the final words are heard, they are stripped of other overtones that mortals could hear directly in a god's voice.

An apparently important subtlety of Hell's phrasing, seemingly key to a puzzle, may stem only from some devil phrasing something poorly and not foreseeing what a mortal would make of it.  This is yet another reason to just follow Hell's commands without trying to brilliantly improvise around the fine edges of their exact details, when Hell has interpreted Asmodeus's will into mortal language; the commands' edges may not have been placed that finely.

Aspexia Rugatonn has gotten this far in life by combining the executive capacity to manage fractious subordinates, plus great initiative and independence and ambition of her own, plus the cruel and tyrannical disposition to be a priestess of Asmodeus, with a genuinely intuitive understanding of why it can sometimes be a good idea to just follow your orders.  Her ascendance to the peak of Asmodeus's church can be seen as inevitable, since there's only a billion or so people in Golarion and it is unlikely enough that even a single person like Aspexia Rugatonn came to exist there, let alone two.  She worries about what will happen to her carefully crafted church after she dies.

Oh, and there's also the fact that this entire affair has now been the subject of: two direct interventions of Asmodeus, four cleric circles bestowed from Abadar, two oracle circles from Nethys, possibly something to do with Irori, and two oracle circles from yet another unidentified Lawful Neutral god still under investigation.  In retrospect, Aspexia really should have put up the Forbiddance first thing in the morning, no matter what else was on her schedule.

It would be genuinely arrogant, under those circumstances, for Aspexia to imagine that she knows precisely what is going on and can plan precise dances around it.  Thankfully, in this case, Asmodeus has given her orders by way of Hell, which she can follow.

So Aspexia knows exactly - indeed trivially - what she plans to say to Sevar.  Aspexia plans to say what Asmodeus's orders call for her to say.

The man speaks.  "Carissa Sevar.  I am Rathus Ratarion, Paraduke under Her Infernal Majestrix.  If, and only if, you are not urgently about our Lord's other business, the Most High bids you walk with myself and her, while she goes about casting a Forbiddance upon this place.  If you have theological questions, do not speak them to her.  The Most High would not usually be the one to instruct a fourth-circle cleric, which is the precise fashion in which our Lord has commanded us to treat you; and as the Most High has approached you here, such instruction would not be sought of your own accord, as Asmodeus has also commanded us regarding you."

Carissa stands, and falls in behind the both of them, and is slightly impressed with herself for managing to do even that gracefully; internally, she is shaking. She wonders if there is a fashion of instructing students that imbues them with sufficient awe in their superiors without leaving them somewhat debiliatingly terrified in their actual presence; perhaps awe and terror go together inevitably, but if any place had decoupled them, dath ilan would have. And Keltham wasn't frightened by Contessa Lrilatha, though objectively speaking he should have been, and perhaps that was just an error. 

"Who would, ordinarily, instruct a fourth-circle cleric?" she asks the man once she's sure that her voice will convey at least no less dignity than an average Chelish wizard manages.

"A fifth-circle cleric or higher, depending on the question; the senior cleric stationed here should suffice for many such.  There are questions that would naturally be referred from them to the Most High -"  A slight hesitation.  "But I should not, I think, attempt to insinuate what those questions would be, while you stand in the Most High's presence not sought of your own accord.  You might be led into asking those questions, and that would constitute our being proactive, which our Lord has been very clear we should not be.  I believe that I should come quickly to our business here, Sevar, and reduce my risks of accidentally being proactive."

Aspexia Rugatonn strides briskly ahead of both of them, but not fast enough that it would be strenuous for the other two to follow.  It's plausible that she intends to make a quick circuit of the entire grounds, perhaps for purposes of Forbiddance.

Carissa keeps pace. 

It....seems likely that she is being reprimanded? If she had been proactive, and sought out the senior cleric stationed here, then Asmodeus could have delivered whatever instruction He intended -

- except, He could do that anyway, right -

- well, He said to seek it out proactively, and she hasn't done that yet, so if it's a test she failed, which is terrifying, except also, it has been less than an hour, and she spent the entire time reflecting on what questions she was going to ask so as to do the job properly! She's not complaining (even internally) that it is unfair, for her to have failed the test; the test is whether she's useful or not, and there's no fairness in that. No one shopping at the market and picking over vegetables, leaving out the bruised ones, worries that those ones aren't getting a fair shot. But it seems like the test isn't necessarily discriminating very well, if spending an hour thinking through what you're going to ask before asking is failing it.

So possibly she is - not being reprimanded? Evidence for this theory: she isn't in even a little bit of pain! Possibly she is just being - because it's very unlikely that the offer to walk with Aspexia Rugatonn was extended without specific intent - reminded of what it means, to be raised high in this world by Asmodeus; reminded of what she has been offered, if she is good enough.

And possibly she is being evaluated.  Actually, that shouldn't have come to mind third. Asmodeus bothered with her; this is confusing; possibly it is confusing even to Aspexia Rugatonn, and she wants to know whether it is some specific feature of Carissa as a person which prompted the offer or whether it was, effectively, offered to the girl who got in with Keltham fastest, on the assumption all of them would be minimally competent from there - that doesn't quite fit, but she doesn't have a better theory to replace it with - 

- well, if it was something specific about Carissa, the only thing she can think of - the only thing that felt like a thought pattern no one else in Cheliax had thought before - was the question she was puzzling over during Keltham's lesson, about how to reconcile dath ilan's teachings of law and chaos and heredity and humans having been copied rather than created and what free will is. Her going interpretation, she thinks vaguely, of Asmodeus's message, was that she was being too Lawful Neutral; she was going to reconstruct it all and arrive at the wrong place. She is grateful for the warning, and intends to take it to heart, and won't try again until she's better at Evil. But presumably Asmodeus wouldn't have said anything just to save her from becoming a heretic and dying of it, so it must be important, in some way outside her; maybe, if she gets it right, she can convince Keltham. That's probably her top guess, if she had to name one. (What's confusing about it, what's the strongest argument against it.... well, if a really good theologian was projected to succeed at convincing Keltham, they'd have gotten a theologian in to do it, that's a little confusing.)

"First, I am to deliver this copy from the eidetic memory of Elias Abarco of the complete event.  It includes Elias Abarco's report of the precise words of all instructions from Hell.  Any clear errors or omissions in Elias's report which appear to you are extremely serious affairs, and are to be reported to us at once; if you are doubtful, report your doubts accurately, and magic to clarify your memory will be provided you.  Once you touch this paper it will become readable only by you, barring great magics.  Report nonetheless if it is stolen, or, as a clever spy might arrange, apparently lost due to your own carelessness under very embarrassing circumstances that you are sorely tempted to keep secret.  It may be destroyed by burning at your own discretion, though I would suggest being very certain you have perfectly memorized Hell's conveyed instructions before doing so."

Paraduke Rathus Ratarion hands Carissa a paper written in very precise, very clear handwriting, containing to all appearances a complete and accurate transcript of the entire event, including the part where she threatened to eat the devil's heart and everything she said to Elias Abarco afterwards about wanting to be pretty, and the rest of that.

The thing she's tempted to say is 'thank you', as if it's a favor; she restrains herself. It is a very valuable thing to her but that's got nothing to do with why it was handed to her; this is sacred material, a communication very distantly from Asmodeus himself, and it ought to be correct, as their duty to Him. She reads through it. "This matches my recollection on a first review."

"Good.  There remains then the matter of your first set of requests for Chelish state support in your indulgences, a matter in which I have been deemed the person best suited to make decisions.  I have come to a preliminary decision on all of your requests here."

Carissa glances back down at the paper to be entirely sure what she said.

"I'm going to need to be prettier. Every count's heir I've ever seen was stunningly beautiful. Don't you dare comment on my looks, I'll stab you. I'm going to need to be prettier. And I want a headband, and an allowance for crafting."

         "I don't actually know how much the inheriting daughter of a Count of - I mean, presumably they get their allowance from their county, which you haven't got -"

"Well, maybe you should get me one."

         "Is this what gratitude for the extraordinary indulgence of your god looks like?"

"Gratitude? He wants a return. And I'm going to be perfect. - can I have the other girls' souls?"

Wow. She really did say that. She's still not in pain so she's going to conclude she doesn't regret it at all. Yet.

They are now outside and circling briskly about the grounds, paths through moderately pretty gardens with an unusual number of red and black flowers, going to near where fences and defenses begin.  Aspexia is frowning, not at Carissa, but with a surveyor's eye, suggesting that she is considering where to place the borders of her Forbiddance in a place convenient to moving some of the defenses inward.

The Paraduke continues speaking.

"There exists a tension between two elements of Hell's interpretation given to us of Asmodeus's will; which is a hazard of Hell interpreting and distorting Asmodeus's will into such commands as may be spoken in language to mortals.  We are, on the one hand, to reward you no less and no more than you have earned under Asmodeus's Law.  On the other hand, to support you as though you were an inheriting daughter of a Countess, if you seek to indulge."

"Interpreting and resolving such tensions, in Asmodeus's direct interventions conveyed by way of Hell, is ordinarily business of the Most High Aspexia Rugatonn.  It is in this capacity that she is overseeing my own interactions with you now, in case I make any errors in my interpretation, while she had other business about this place."

To all appearances, Paraduke Rathus Ratarion seems entirely unbothered by the prospect of needing to execute confusing instructions from Asmodeus-by-way-of-Hell with the Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus watching him in case he requires correction.  Perhaps he is, in fact, unbothered by it.  This is unlikely to be among the hundred most stressful days of his life.

"The Most High currently believes we are to resolve the tension in our instructions thus: reason as if you were the inheriting daughter of a Count of Cheliax, and decide your requests as though we were being asked what treatment of an inheriting daughter would be a matter of concern according to the principles of Her Infernal Majestrix's reign."

"In regards to your request to seem more comely, if an heiress of a Count was being forced to grow up with an ordinary appearance, it would be a non-Asmodean behavior of small but noticeable concern to Church and Queen.  If the pattern was repeated, or if it was done with deliberate attempt to prevent that heiress from indulging in vanity, it would become a matter of greater concern."

"In such an event, I, Paraduke Rathus Ratarion, minister over the Asmodean culture of the nobility under Her Infernal Majestrix, would be dispatched by the Majestrix to speak to this hypothetical Count, inquire into any hidden reasons, and perhaps suggest a correction.  In this case, the Count in question does not exist, and so the Count may be considered to have mounted no counterargument and yielded the issue."  This statement is accompanied, very briefly, by that humorous grin which might look genuine to anyone who'd never been to Cheliax.

"A wizard-potionmaker pair that has recently treated county heiresses has been located, and you will be conveyed there tomorrow for your first treatment.  After dinner-time tomorrow, which, given your reported schedule, seemed least likely to cause you to miss any important lectures from the person that Hell referred to as your teacher.  Despite the general importance and urgency of obeying Asmodeus's commands, I ruled out having it done at once, since the inheriting daughter of a Count would not have someone else's appointment canceled for her to accommodate her the same day as she made the request."

"I will not ask if this is to your satisfaction, as a county heiress would not be so asked by myself.  Nor is it appropriate for you to express gratitude towards me.  I am not granting you favors.  I am conversing with a hypothetical parent of yours regarding which indulgences are deemed a positive sign in a young Asmodean noble, and Her Infernal Majestrix's state is then acting in that absent Count's capacity using such resources as a Count would allocate."

"If any of this process and reasoning seems less than completely understandable to you, speak now, as it concerns Asmodeus's commands and hence is of great importance to clarify.  I may not be present here in person to interact with you in the future."

See, they are more like Keltham than normal people, they'd make more sense to him, Contessa Lrilatha did but she was trying to so that wasn't much evidence but this man, too, would make sense to Keltham, there is a truth that both of them are climbing towards, only dath ilan doesn't have gods to guide them towards it and does have a billion people with an average INT of 18 working on it -

To Keltham she would say 'I think I understand', because she suspects Keltham values apparent effort towards - acknowledging her own errancy, towards admitting that this is not the sort of set of sentences which one would rightly be perfectly sure they understand - but this is Cheliax. Her errancy is accounted for. "I understand," she says, only because it's quicker than the pause he'd give for her to admit confusions if she had any.

"After careful consideration, I have made a preliminary ruling that your request for an intelligence-increasing headband, and for a crafting allowance, seems to me to come less under the heading of a desire to indulge in Asmodean behavior befitting young nobility, and more under the heading of your requesting a reward not yet earned.  If the inheriting daughter of a Count were told to produce results meriting an intelligence headband and crafting allowance, or else go without, the Church and Queen would not object."

"I would not hand you title to the souls of your rival women even if I could.  While the goal is laudably Asmodean, it is not one which should be immediately satisfied in a Count's heiress as an indulgence.  It would be more proper for her parent to instruct her to triumph over her rivals herself."

"The request for a county is intriguing, and perhaps even, arguably, indulgent; but it seems to stretch the interpretation of the wording for prioritizing you as if you were an heiress, and to be too much of an unearned reward.  While it was an admirably Asmodean ploy, I put forth on behalf of Her Infernal Majestrix, and the Most High agreed, that if such had been our Lord's true will, Hell's interpretation would have said to make you an heiress, not to prioritize your support as though you were one.  We were sensible, of course, that you were likely just teasing poor Elias with that request, but Asmodeus's orders to us do not actually say that it matters."  Another cheerful-appearing, humorous-appearing smile, which vanishes just as quickly as before.

"You will receive by tomorrow's evening a lightly enchanted dueling dagger, whose wounds heal more easily but which causes greater pain.  It will be simple in style, but suitable for a Count's heiress to carry, and would be appropriate for her to use to stab somebody who commented on her appearance."

"You are permitted to argue these preliminary rulings, especially by reference to implications of Asmodeus's interpreted instructions which I may have failed to comprehend.  Do you wish to do so?"

"No." She is not very surprised to learn that she cannot have a headband, a crafting allowance, a county and the souls of her rivals just because Asmodeus said (something that got translated down as) that she should be somewhat indulged. "How should I make my requests of the Cheliax government acting in the stead of my Count, in the future?"

"This location reports daily to both Church and Crown, or is intended to do so, once it has stopped generating an additional top-urgency report every hour as presently seems to be the case.  If your request is not more urgent than that - which a Count's heir's request ordinarily would not be - there should be a cleric on site who is responsible for maintaining communication; direct your messages to them or have a report delivered to them, for forwarding to my own office."

- nod. "The other girls, who sell their souls, are going to have permanent arcane sight. It would be unsuitable, I think, for a Count's inheriting daughter to be studying magic with a peer group all of whom had such a substantial advantage she did not."