There's a lot to be said for trying to snap out of this and go back to his normal, and then only change one piece of himself at a time from there, in response to new facts about Golarion as he actually learns them, because Keltham has not precached any other sensibly configured ways to be.

That sounds to Keltham like the sort of standard advice that a Keeper would give you about what to do if you've had an overly large epiphany, especially one induced by a temporary state of perception you can't go back and access again.

Keltham continues to sit and think, for a time.

The girls glare expectantly at Ione the instant Keltham leaves the room.

Ione is now trying to think very fast.

So.  They obviously haven't been told.  Which, earlier, Ione thought in the back of her mind would happen as soon as the security wizard walked out after gouging her eye, because they'd tell her former classmates about the new security risk, because all of Cheliax would unite against her in hating her and hurting her as much as they could short of killing her.  Apparently the part where, by default, security doesn't tell anyone anything, takes higher precedence.

Also she is now visibly useful to the project and that casts a different shade on the whole thing where - she knows how she wishes this would go, but to make security go along with it, she needs to have something to offer security, something to bargain with security, something that Nethys wouldn't require her to just hand over anyways -

She also has to choose how to answer the expectant looks, now, even if it's silence she has to make it clearly deliberate -

Ione thinks of something she can offer security, and picks her strategy to try with the other girls, because she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life with Keltham's other women being as cruel to her as won't kill her, whenever Keltham isn't looking.

"So I'm not really sure," Ione says, using the glorious feeling of realizing her curse's real power to fuel a smile, "but I think Asmodeus cut a deal with Nethys, to go in on Keltham's project together, and I was the person here who was best suited to get the power from Nethys to summon temporary copies of books from other libraries plus whatever else it is I can do now.  Didn't do it on purpose, just happened to me."

There is an astonished silence. But she's - not dead, which says that they're not supposed to kill her, which is something. 

"Security," says Paxti after a few seconds, "I'm obliged to report evidence of forbidden primary worship even if I think you have it already."

This makes everyone else tense nervously, because they didn't say that, but now obviously it's too late. 

Security is most visibly at the window, making sure the dead bird is just a dead bird. 

"You should walk to the Forbiddance boundary and back," Meritxell says. "To prove you're still loyal to Hell. The Forbiddance won't hurt you if you are."

"Or they could just tell me to fail a Will save and read my mind.  Also Forbiddance goes by alignment, not loyalty to Asmodeus, and I wouldn't be here if they weren't sure about Lawful Evil."

"But, sure, if an expert says that getting touched by Nethys didn't change my alignment for Forbiddance purposes, I'll walk out and walk back if the actual security here tells me I should."

Ione thinks, loudly, about her offer to security, if they don't shoot her down on this.  Keltham's going to want a book on cleric spells at some point, she's guessing, and if they make up their own version of a book or remove a few pages, and hide it in this library, Ione can summon a copy of that to give to Keltham.  Nethys, she thinks, wouldn't want her to withhold help from Keltham's project, so she knows she doesn't have her help to bargain with, she knows she has to give it anyways.  But the version of this where she's actively cooperating with security, giving them helpful suggestions like that, and going along with Cheliax's masquerades - if she's doing all that, she wants to be treated more like Nethys's oracle that got sent here by pact with Asmodeus to help with Cheliax's project, which is probably what she really is - and not be treated like a heretic and traitor she never asked to become or wanted to be.

Elias Abarco pulls off his invisibility, looking greatly annoyed. He's mostly annoyed because Ione doesn't seem to care about anybody; they spent the last couple hours checking up on familial and nonfamilial relations they could murder or nearly murder to make a point, and her parents sold her to the school and she has an older brother who by all accounts hates her and she hates him back. This is healthy and encouraged in young wizards but it's damn inconvenient when one is irritated with Ione Sala and really wants to rip something she cares about to pieces before her eyes. 

He nods to Paxti, because she was right and should know it.

"She's still Lawful Evil," he says curtly. "Paxti, you should hit the rest of them, for being slow in reporting. Do you know the spell -"

    "Yes."

And he looks at Ione. Raises his eyebrows, slightly, nods even more slightly than that. And heads off to see why the damned bird is taking them so long, because it turns out that supervising a bunch of god-touched teenagers is the worst.

Ione does not think thank you, obviously, there are so few occasions in Cheliax where it's ever appropriate to say that, she's surprised sometimes the word hasn't died out.  Deal, is what she thinks back, along with her very Lawful and Asmodean intention to keep her deals fully if the other party keeps theirs.

Paxti is not actually delighted by this assignment at all, not that this shows on her face; they're very much playing an iterated game here, and that means that hitting people too hard is risky, and hitting people too lightly is risky, and while no one's outright glaring at her several of them look a bit contemptuous, even though she got this right and they got this wrong. The contemptuousness is a sign she should err on the side of 'too hard'. 

Carissa would kind of like for less of her mental energy to be caught up in imagining there is an invisible halfling from Otolmens here ready to kill someone. It's really cramping her style. But there is a halfling, or at least there might be, unless Asmodeus told Aspexia Rugatonn to do something different, which is not less terrifying, and so she doesn't want to particularly confront Ione, even though she has some good material for it, or even ask Ione for a book, which is what she'd do if there were slightly less at stake here, because it seems likely that Nethys's intervention here is part of what Otolmens is objecting to...

Paxti's spell slaps her, harder than people usually bother with. Carissa wishes there were a way for Paxti to know that she's not just affecting being so absorbed in more important matters that she barely noticed, she actually is so absorbed in more important matters than she barely noticed, but there's not.

"I never worshipped Nethys," Ione says while this is going on.  "I never deliberately read anything about any gods that weren't Asmodeus.  I passed my loyalty checks.  You report it because it's evidence, but while you're doing that, have your own sense about what must have actually happened.  Nethys has an obvious interest in working with Asmodeus on this, and I doubt there are any actual Nethys worshippers on site or who'd be allowed in.  I was just the one there who liked books."

Then Ione realizes what she has to say, and it also works for her own benefit that she says it - "Note, though.  Keltham thinks I'm a secret Nethys worshipper, and I've told him that probably most of you and most Chelish government officials wouldn't care, but that I wasn't sure.  Security thinks that, once Keltham learns the spells to verify that I'm Nethys-touched, I can be a secret worshipper of Nethys here who confirms our stories to him.  So don't treat me as anything except somebody with a weird book-fetching power, anywhere Keltham might see that.  You are not supposed to know anything about me other than that, and even if you did, Keltham doesn't think that worshipping Nethys is something that'd get most people after me."

It's a security advisory, it's clearly a correct security advisory, and if Ione gives it before anybody else does, it means Ione is somebody who sometimes says what the security advisories are.  Which, obviously she absolutely will never abuse for anything Chelish security would not in fact like, she is a very good and cooperative oracle of Nethys, she is only securing her own safety among the lesser mortals who aren't security.

The lesser mortals who aren't security take the meaning and look variously impressed or annoyed or unreadable. 

"Can you get destroyed books?" says Meritxell after a moment. "Can you get books out of Abadar's vault?"

"No, it seems pretty power-balanced so far," Ione says, hardly even thinking about the learned reflex that halts her instinct to start spilling the exact details of what she can do.  "At least at the current circle-equivalent of whatever it is."

"Huh. Well, if you go mad I'll try to put you down while there's still something for Hell to salvage." And she heads off to dinner. 

Carissa wonders absently what Meritxell would do if instructed by Asmodeus Himself to learn to be more Evil. 

Ione will go back to her usual quiet self unless people ask her more questions or actively talk to her, while she goes on trying to rethink her life.  She clearly can't continue playing her game of being the quiet one and never attracting attention, but that was just a game, so it shouldn't be too hard for her to figure out a different one.  She could have levered her higher grades into a position of more dominance in the classroom, she could have played riskier games and ended up closer to the top; she just deliberately decided it wasn't worth the risk, before, and now she doesn't have that option anymore.

(Being the quiet one was just a game move, right?)

Elias shoos the other kids out to dinner, after a few more minutes of them playing stupid teenager social games, so he can have another word with Ione. 

"You should strip," he says, once they've left. "I am considering lighting you on fire and it'd be inconvenient to replace your clothes."

Ione Sala takes off her clothes immediately, without protest, old reflexes of fear overwhelming her and making it hard to think much further.  She manages not to tremble too much about it.

"I am noticing a pattern," Elias says. "The pattern is, you decide that actually fucking submitting to the will of Asmodeus and promptly doing whatever He wants would be inconvenient for you personally, maybe get you killed, so instead you try to sell your obedience, to which we are already entitled, in bits and chunks, for things you want. Do you see how I might have observed this pattern."

"Nethys has a grip on my soul now, I can feel it, and it doesn't matter whether or not I object to Asmodeus making that deal, but you wouldn't let Nethys keep up His end of whatever this is unless I made it hard for you to sweep me out of the way, which I know I have to do because otherwise Nethys will break me, and I wouldn't be surprised if Asmodeus predicted that when He gave me to Nethys because He also knew that security would try to -"

Elias does light her on fire, at that point, just because the sentence runs on so long. He doesn't maintain the spell for longer than its natural one round, though; he regrettably actually should not kill her. 

"I'm not a theologian," he says, "but I'm slightly less stupid than you, and my read is, Asmodeus gave you to Nethys because Keltham's going to demand corroboration from other churches, which you can provide. And had security reached that conclusion, when you turned yourself in promptly like you should have, then we wouldn't have killed you - or would have raised you, if we didn't think of it in time. If it serves Asmodeus for you to live, then you don't have to fight like a rabid seagull to give us reason to keep you breathing, because the incentives were already there. If it serves Asmodeus for you to die, then none of these games will work. And if you're unpredictable enough, then at some point it will serve us for you to die, simply because corpses don't make sudden moves that wreck half a dozen plans they don't know about. Stop it. No more games, no more deals."

This is about as painful as the most painful punishment she's been through.

"Don't care if I die," she coughs out, when she can speak.  She doesn't try to stop the trembles, the sobs that interrupt her, but she knows that this is probably the most important negotiation of her life, so she should spend everything she has on continuing it.  "Belong to - Nethys - have to work - for Him - I served Asmodeus from fear - because He would get my soul - and you know that's good enough - for Lord Asmodeus - but it's not true - anymore - don't tell me what Asmodeus wants - that's your side - mine is - what Nethys wants - so I want to make a deal - Asmodean - and then I'll be - predictable."

"Sure. Here's your deal. Stop fucking with me. You live, you stay in your library, you get the books we tell you to get, you study magic very diligently and impress Nethys, he likes high-circle casters, and you never again screw us over for the sake of your bargaining position, or I'll see to it you never hit third circle, and I don't think Nethys cares at all about people who have barely started studying magic. Lots of people don't hit third. Keltham won't be suspicious. If you don't give me an easier way to do it, I will do it by making you stupider, and I know how Nethys would feel about you then. Got it?"

There's a flare of hate in her then, now that she won't go to Hell for hating Asmodeus's servants.  And with that hate, flashes of contempt, starting to arrange themselves around her sudden new identity.  She is too scared, too shaking from being on fire for a minute, and too angry, not to think the thoughts that she is thinking now.

You can make Asmodeans into high-level wizards, if you give them enough intelligence boosts, but you can't make them think.  She's not particularly happy about having thought that, she doesn't actually want to insult the person in front of her if he's reading her mind, but the thought came to her anyways.

The security wizard hasn't realized that this entire conversation has been predicted out by Nethys and Asmodeus, he isn't curious about the divine, he isn't keeping his eyes open and because of that he doesn't see.  He's posturing about serving Asmodeus, and not realizing how this whole interaction they're having right now is something that Asmodeus no doubt had to work around and pay Nethys extra for in order to get a library oracle on His project.  She hopes somebody in Hell has a very very long talk with him about that after he dies.

Nethys has really gone to some lengths, in ways very visible to her, to make sure that Nethys can seriously threaten her and Chelish security can't.

She can't be maledicted, she can't be tortured for very long, if she's killed in the course of sincerely doing her duties that thought doesn't actually bother her at all if she gets to go to Nethys's afterlife and study magic forever instead of burning, and maybe Cheliax wouldn't dare kill her anyways because if she can't be maledicted somebody else might raise her and she'd talk all about Keltham.  Ione Sala doesn't know what Nethys has set up against somebody cursing her stupider, but maybe it'll be too obvious to Keltham by then, or she can pray to Nethys for divine aid, or she could simply go to Keltham and tell him it's time to find a university who can Heal her better.  Or maybe the higher-ups here are aware that cursing Nethys's oracle with stupidity would in fact constitute a serious slap in the face of a god, one who's very hard to keep out of things, on a site already subjected to extensive divine intervention.

And she is too scared, too shaking, and too angry, not to think what she thinks then.

That's not how compacts work, Asmodean.  They're negotiated, not dictated.  Nethys made very sure you wouldn't be able to escalate your threats against me to worse than what Nethys could do.  Maybe you should call in a more experienced security officer who knows how to negotiate with non-Asmodeans you can't just maledict.  Someone who understands what happens if you leave people scared of being set on fire and stupidified and your negotiating position does not, in fact, let you just keep escalating further until you send them to Hell.  Non-Asmodeans stay on the lookout for ways to improve their bargaining positions, if they're scared and you haven't made a real deal with them, that's what happens.  I wasn't ambitious and I'm still not ambitious and I don't want really very much at all, if you negotiated terms with me I'd be very predictable and wouldn't even ask for very much, but if Asmodeus's representative wants Nethys's representative to be predictable, he needs to bargain for that and not just dictate.

"I understand," Ione whispers out loud, meekly.  He's either reading her thoughts like a halfway intelligent person or he's not; she'll see.

"You got your deal. And I don't notice you being reasonable and predictable at all."