Does he...not want people to envy him? Or just have enough of the thing that's not sufficient as -

"Okay. I - think I can productively work on that one, alone, though I would be grateful for advice if you have it." she's going to have to be so proactive about seeking out their help, given the rule they can't just tell her when she obviously needs it. "And maybe on slavery? What are the signs of having potential at that one?"

"You are obviously interested in it, and I doubt you are interested in it for purposes of stamping it out like a paladin of Iomedae.  You skipped right over the question of how we raise mortal slaves in Cheliax and went straight to the more interesting tortures in Hell, wondering exactly how they were designed to suit which purposes of Asmodeus."  Ferrer Maillol gives her, now, the sort of conspiratorial smile that he'd give to an up-and-coming new member of the Inner Ring (an entire aspect of Asmodean theology whose details Sevar has not yet inquired into, and which she probably isn't ready for).  "I haven't any trouble imagining you, a thousand years hence, as a Baron of Hell overseeing the refinement of thousands of fresh mortals - or maybe even a Duke of Hell set to raise the highest of future devils from the most promising candidates."

"Though you will be more immediately useful to our Lord if you can train valuable slaves for Him here - keeping in mind that we are all our Lord's slaves.  Don't only think of collared wretches dredging the streets, if training them for sale doesn't seem grand enough to suit you.  Do you find yourself inspired to teach a new generation of wizards, perhaps?  And if so - would you rather teach them in Lastwall, under whatever absurd restrictions hold there?  Or in Cheliax, where you are free to punish and reward as you please, where mortals are your raw material to be freely crafted so long as you deliver results?"

"I want - I want to figure out what dath ilan but Asmodean is, and I want to prove that it makes better wizards, and better soldiers and better devils eventually."

Ferrer Maillol chuckles in a way that is only 95% humorless, for infinity percent more humor than he uses on most occasions.  "Sevar, there are certainly a thousand subtle refinements of the notion of Asmodean slavery beyond that, but don't overlook that if you set out to produce better wizards, soldiers, and devils, by any useful means and without a hundred mad restrictions preventing you from doing it properly, paladins of Iomedae will call you a slaver and try to stop you.  If our Lord demanded that people comprehend the exact, full meaning of His domains before He would choose a cleric of the first circle, He would have no clerics in this world."

"I'm not tempted by Good," she says, which is more candid than she's ever even contemplated being with a superior but if she needs correcting she needs correcting, she's not trying to avoid that, at this point. "Good is stupid and if you try to do anything ambitious it'll be Evil, I know that, I acknowledge myself to being susceptible to ending up Neutral accidentally but it's not - squeamishness, or thinking that it's important people have a nice time while they're learning things, it's - modeling Keltham too closely, probably. My job right now is half trying to understand Keltham and half not to be a heretic while I'm doing it. I am sure I'm pointed in the wrong direction somewhere but I'm not pointed in - thinking children should decide whether they go to school or spend all day lounging around eating sweets, and I know we're all children."

"If it seems stupidly obvious to you that slavery is the way to go, Sevar, that is not unsuggestive of an aptitude for it.  Hell's relayed instructions seem to me to suggest that you are in danger of heresy primarily because you have not found within yourself the desires that would keep you out of Axis."

Ferrer Maillol taps his fingers on his thigh, so that Sevar knows he's thinking and doesn't try to interrupt him.  There were some interesting points in Sevar's file drawn from her mind being read.  He wouldn't ordinarily say this part, it has been sometimes known to confuse even first-circle clerics, but Sevar may need to know.  "There's a story not commonly told to Asmodean clerics before they reach second-circle, except in special cases, but you may possibly be one of those cases.  After I tell it to you, you are not to repeat it to anyone not at least a second-circle cleric of Asmodeus, including high nobility of Cheliax.  Security will know better than to repeat it if they read it from your thoughts, and it is already the case that nobody is allowed to read your mind unless they are at clearance levels far above the ones you used to have.  Clear?"

" - yes."

"There was once a well-hushed scandal, concerning a certain ordinary Baroness, who was found to have been keeping, as a bed-slave, a man who'd been chosen as a first-circle cleric of Asmodeus.  She kept him after his choosing.  Tell me, what do you suppose happened after that?"

"- I assume if the answer were' she was punished because that's presumably illegal' then you wouldn't be telling me this as an important story. Was she - promoted? So the arrangement wasn't a problem?"

"Illegal doesn't begin to cover it.  There was an immediate massive clampdown on the entire event as fast as word could be passed upward, as people saw the potential for conflict between Church and Queen over the details of how to handle it.  The Baroness in question, who was in my own personal opinion something of an absolute idiot, seemed to feel that she'd done nothing wrong, since the cleric himself had never said that Asmodeus didn't want her to go on keeping him."

"An ensuing investigation turned up the puzzling fact that this new cleric had no visible aptitude for tyrannizing others, nor for crafting slaves, nor for executing compacts, and he definitely had no visible pride.  This, of course, made our Lord's mysterious action all the more potentially important to understand, if it was not done for any of the usual reasons."

"The answer, in the end, was that the man had no aptitude for tyrannizing others - but that he felt on a truly deep level that it was right for him to be tyrannized.  He had no aptitude as a slavemaster - but felt that it was very right and proper for him to be a slave.  He had no aptitude for contracts - but felt that all was right with the world when his Baroness was forcing him into grossly unfair bargains in her bed-games.  He understood the order of society that underlies pride, and saw his own place was at the bottom of it.  This, we think, is why Asmodeus chose him, though Asmodeus made no revelations on that subject."

"It is not just a lie told to the masses, if you were ever wondering about that, that Asmodeus has been known to treasure some of His possessions as things beautiful to Him in themselves, and not just for the uses that we have to Him.  So far as we know, the man was not being very useful to Asmodeus, before or after he became His cleric.  He had simply earned Asmodeus's favor by having a rare nature pleasing to His sight."

"The bed-slave cleric was purchased for a high price, resold to a more trustworthy noble at a vastly higher price, and afterwards the Baroness in question seems to have been assassinated by no known party.  The entire matter stays swept firmly into the corners, because if it became known, idiots would derive the wrong lesson about what nobles are allowed to do to our Lord's clerics."

"I mention this in case any of your own desires lie in the opposite polarity from the vantage point that nobles usually take.  It also shows that Asmodeus's domains can be subtle things even in their largest directions.  You would not know all about them from hearing the four concepts listed out.  There should be desires in you that are pleasing to our Lord and will prevent you from falling into heresy.  You should not cast too narrow an eye when it comes to looking for those desires, I suggest.  Asmodeus would not have given such weighty instructions if the matter was going to be simple."

It is, in particular, obvious to him that Sevar may perhaps have the nature of a slave rather than a slaver, given some of the thoughts recorded in her file.  Ferrer Maillol is not certain he should spell this out directly.

" - is it a problem, if I let Keltham hit me - I haven't, but should it come up -"

"Oh, there are quite a number of clerics and loyal nobles like that, in the hidden behind-the-scenes of Cheliax.  Though that nature is not, by itself, sufficient for full admission."

"I would expect so because there's not that much of a gender discrepancy in the hierarchy and there is, in liking - sorry, never mind. I'll keep that in mind? I - obviously everyone is supposed to be grateful to be the possession of Asmodeus and I don't know how to tell if one is more grateful than average."

"If you have even once in your life sincerely thought that you wished to burn in the purifying flames of Hell and emerge perfected, I think you are a step ahead of the general peasantry," Ferrer Maillol says dryly.  "I am not looking forwards to it, in fact, though I would not say as much to anyone who didn't have a note in their file about having apparently sincerely thought what you did."

"At our level, in our inner fellowship, it is not demanded of us that we pretend that the fates Pharasma assigned us are the fates we would have chosen for ourselves.  We live inside an absolute and inescapable greater tyranny - all of us, from Cheliax to Lastwall, from slaves to the gods of Good.  Most people have no natural response to that except for endless whining and complaining, and living in denial until Lawful Evil inevitably conquers everything that isn't Lawful Evil.  Some of us are born with something that is native to the plane we live in, that can push along the tyranny rather than being swept away struggling.  That's why we get to wear pretty rubies on our robes, and burn in Hell for a shorter time and come out of it as higher devils."

"We're not just playing the game because we want a better score in it.  It's our game.  We'd play it even if Asmodeus wasn't there."

"It's that quality - not feeling grateful for Asmodeus having to force us into it - that makes us the favored of Asmodeus and recognized as His own."

Though that's all Inner Ring theology and part of his own favored concern of tyranny, which he should maybe not emphasize as much if Sevar hasn't a visible aptitude for it.

She indeed is slightly confused by that. " - may I take notes?"

"I'll get you a secure notebook.  Bide."  He opens the door of his office, and takes a few rapid strides until he finds someone who can be ordered to get an unbound secure notebook from the military inventory.

Carissa is trying to commit all that to memory so she can think about it in more detail later. Most people don't want to burn in the purifying flames of Hell - what does that mean? They would prefer it if they didn't in fact need much purifying? Sure, Carissa would prefer that too, that'd be awfully convenient, though she'd trade more purifying for coming out better on the other end - would most people not take that trade? Are most clerics of Asmodeus not able to notice that it is good to suffer if you come out of the suffering improved? But it's very obvious!! She thinks she could even phrase it so Keltham agreed? We are all slaves of this world the way Pharasma made it - seems true -  presumably not heretical, to think of Pharasma as having made it - but also we would make it ourselves - but would we? Maybe we would make dath ilan, instead? 

Ferrer Maillol waits on the notebook - it takes longer than it would have before, with the Forbiddance up.  Apparently some fool failed to immediately issue Sevar with a secure notebook after she was made privy to secrets.  After this, he should probably check in on the military side and see what kind of mess they've made of Sevar's status inside the system.

We live inside an absolute and unescapable greater tyranny. Seems true. Some of us can be more than - grist for it. Seems true. Most people who are devout servants of Asmodeus are not grateful to belong to Asmodeus but they are  -

- but they are like Asmodeus. That's a frame that fits. Asmodeus wants people who are like him, and people who'd build Hell, rather than dath ilan, are more like Asmodeus. And Carissa is going to have to - well, either she's going to have to shape up at that or she's going to have to demonstrate that a Lawful Evil dath ilan is just better.

Ferrer Maillol returns and hands Carissa her new secure notebook, along with a pamphlet on the regulations for secure notebooks, which he forgot to ask for and which some abnormally competent officer had delivered to him anyways.  "Do you require further theological instruction?  Have you resolved whatever issue with Keltham first brought you here?  You have not asked much explicitly about that, whatever it was - a matter lying entirely within your own discretion, but I am checking that it is your discretion."

"No, I do want help on that too. Keltham noticed that no one in Cheliax indicates how they feel during classes by looking distressed, and inferred from this that no one would indicate how they felt during sex by looking distressed, and that bothered him on some kind of principle that - so I think it did not in fact occur to him that one could simply not really care if people are secretly distressed, he instead concluded that we've got some extremely clever way to notice secret distress despite everyone hiding it, and was worried that not knowing this himself he'd fail to notice I was distressed, if I was, and I swear I didn't give him any reason to think I would be, he's just like this. And the problem with trying to lie to him is that which facts about the world are inferrable from which other ones is completely sideways for him, I'm genuinely worried that if I'd just said 'oh, normally people are really good at reading lip twitches, but I'll just tell you', then something else would've gone horribly wrong because he made a bunch of inferences from our presumed use of lip twitches - he was really confused about the fact people don't look distressed at each other on purpose, he felt like it was broken, a norm that shouldn't be able to persist in existing. And I have no idea what I'm allowed to tell him about anything and I'd rather as much as possible tell him the truth because of the sideways inferences problem but I haven't gotten any guidance on which things, specifically, I should lie about, besides Hell and I'm separately worried that if I just sleep with him, which I'd really really like to, and then later explain the thing where some people solve the inference problem by simply not caring how the other party is doing, then he'll be - he won't endorse having slept with me without knowing that. 

That's the thing I was stuck on, what to tell him that - only relies on facts about human nature that are true in other countries too, and not on anything about Cheliax."

Ferrer Maillol may need to go get his own notebook for this one.  He taps his fingers, again, to show that he's thinking.

"I'm afraid," Ferrer Maillol says, not bothering to keep the dryness out of his voice, "that after hearing your analysis of Keltham, I have some absolutely terrible news for you about my opinion of your competence to handle this issue."

"I know I've in over my head. If you think you have someone who can impersonate me and do better, I'll obviously assist them however I can. Or get me a headband, which is what I asked for in the first place."

"Oh, it's much worse than that, Sevar.  My opinion is that, even after reading the transcripts of everything Keltham said in his lessons, I have no fucking idea what you're talking about.  If you understand what the fuck you just said to me, then you are, in fact, the most qualified person inside this villa to make the call as to what to tell Keltham and when.  Unless there's some better analysis from the security officers who've been monitoring him, but maybe not paying quite as much attention to learning from the man.  Which means that we are going to go off right now and have that conversation with the security officers, the one where you get authorized to make that call.  If you fuck up it'll be your head on the chopping block, followed immediately after by mine for choosing you.  And since I do value my head, I'll get you your fucking intelligence headband."

"Oh."