"Mine, no.  An Atonement flatly wouldn't work on me, and I would not actually take eternity as a statue over Hell.  I do not, in fact, have better options."

"All of the girls except Pilar, yes.  They're not Inner Ring at all, weren't being tracked for it at second-circle, even after they sold their souls I was thinking of that more as an anti-oracle measure and a way of keeping them in line, and I admit my failure in not realizing earlier that this would create an inexorably developing problem as the project was redirected towards mastering dath ilanism."

...it actually is easier to say, and think, if he mostly doesn't expect to be punished significantly for that failure.  Well.  In the short term.

'wasn't being tracked for the inner ring' also describes Carissa, and she's not on the brink of betraying her god and her country to run off and hide behind Iomedae's paladins. The question that comes immediately to mind is 'why them and not me' but the answer comes to mind just as quickly which is that, yes, they also expect Carissa's Asmodeanism to fall apart. 

Or maybe just that they think the reason Asmodeus picked her, out of all the girls, is that she's different from them.  

If the girls all deconvert then the project fails, they're all executed, and Cheliax plays catchup stealing inventions from other countries and maybe eventually becomes Nidal, a god-sponsored country without ambitions beyond its borders where its god can't sculpt them precisely enough.

She can't allow that to happen. 

"Do you think - the operative ingredient - of your Asmodeanism not being built on lies is the thing where an Atonement wouldn't work? You're not doing anything we could duplicate in students for whom an Atonement might work?'

"I will give you my opinion if requested, Chosen of Asmodeus, but you might be needing to talk to Subirachs.  You exceeded my ability to correct you a while ago."

"From my perspective, which is narrowly focused on our Lord's aspect of tyranny, it's about what people want and what their options are.  Pilar needs Asmodeus and has no other options among divinities.  You are willing to undergo any amount of pain to become everything it is that you want to be, and I get the impression you've noticed at this point that there are things Axis and Heaven would demand you cut off from yourself.  So you don't need lies to serve Asmodeus, and that qualifies you for the Inner Ring of people who are allowed to think."

"Most people don't like pain.  Their inner lives aren't much more complicated than that.  We put the Outers into whatever situation we have to put them into, to make sure they end up in Hell and stay productive in their mortal lives, and teach them to deceive themselves into believing that's their own choice."

"I respectfully register that you may not have grasped how stupid most people are and how short their horizons get.  You may not have been read in on this part, Sevar, desertion is a major problem for Cheliax with wizards at fifth circle and above who can Teleport.  Selling your soul is mandatory before that point.  They desert us in significant numbers anyways.  It's not even that they'd prefer nonexistence and are planning to buy a Plane Shift to Abaddon at the end of otherwise indulgent lives.  It's that having to accept the hierarchy in Cheliax is an unpleasant thing that's happening to them right now, and the punishment in Hell can wait seventy years or so they hope, so they pick now over later and run.  That's with people who were Intelligent enough to become fifth-circle wizards, though of their Wisdom I couldn't attest."

"What we've got going for us, with this set of students, is that they've sold their souls and will end up in Hell if they end up anywhere at all.  Asmodia already decided that she'd rather take Abaddon, which isn't encouraging, but maybe losing half that way is still half left."

"But if our Lord put you to this task, then it must be a task that is possible.  And if I had to guess myself, the answer might be - those who would rather take Abaddon cannot become dath ilani of Hell, only those who've sold their souls or cannot sincerely Atone or have wills incompatible with other gods can become dath ilani of Hell.  But maybe dath ilanism does teach people not to be fucking stupid about their options like soul-sold wizards who desert on us, and that lets us scale about as far as other countries can take their own versions."

Carissa is confused, that fifth circle wizards desert even if they've sold their souls. It's confusing. It doesn't quite feel sufficient, that they're just very very stupid. Broken in some way, sure. She feels like Keltham, missing something that'd make the whole picture fit together, except usually when Keltham says that's how he feels he's actually missing eight things.

"I didn't know that. I'm - going to talk to High Priestess Subirachs. I - don't think it's a hopeless task but I did not have any idea how hard it was, and you should in fact have warned me sooner. I am aware you are all somewhat constrained by - trying to manage my situation - but what's important here is that the project not fall apart of contagious heresy and I didn't know it was close until Ione warned me." It doesn't carry a lot of force, as a reprimand with no punishment behind it, but it is what it is. 

Ferrer Maillol bows his head.  "Acknowledged, sir."

He does not, in fact, require further punishment to understand that he has fucked up.

Message from Security:  Keltham looks like he's thinking about reconvening.  Ione Sala requests permission to conduct a fake poll of the class to see if they want an hour to digest Probability, tell Keltham the majority voted yes, and send him off to study magic with Meritxell for an hour; or, Sala's preference, permission to take Keltham aside and scold him about producing anxiety in the class.  Sala also wants to know whether Asmodia in fact has superpowers and if she should read Asmodia in on, in Sala's words, the Asmodean sanity issue.

Ione is showing too much initiative and should stop it's kind of stressful having major decisions proposed by someone who is a heretic and not obviously working towards Asmodeus's goals here. She'd like closer attention to Ione's thoughts, please, what's she playing at, and -

- try to forget that she heard the suggestion itself and just think about whether she wants class to reconvene right now -

- no, because the kids could use more of a break. 

Tell Yaisa to pull Keltham aside and ask very apologetically if he can walk her through the thing she got stupidly wrong again, she's worried if she doesn't understand it when we restart then she'll be even more confused by the end of the day. Tell Asmodia to try to come up with something clever to do with the underlying laws that produce Probability to distract Keltham with after that. Tell Ione that she cannot take Keltham aside and scold him for that end of section lecture, even if she thinks she would in alter-Cheliax, that's too many layers. Tell Ione that Asmodia doesn't have superpowers but is now doing a seduction gambit with Keltham off the lack of superpowers, and that Ione should not bring Asmodia in on anything. 

And now to Subirachs, at a bit of a run.

Subirachs is in her usual abode.

Being totally candid works really well when you've been declared important by Asmodeus Himself and He's suspected of fighting with other gods over you. "Do you actually want to go to Hell?"

"...I recently realized that I was not looking forwards to it as much as might be hoped-for in one of Asmodeus's own, Chosen.  I don't fear the pain.  I don't fear being a slave myself again for a time.  I do worry - that my art might be smashed and remade entirely different in me, rather than perfected from this beginning."

"And what prompted this thought was wondering if - you might perhaps - be better at it, than those who now train souls and devils in Hell.  The only reason I can think of for your price, not even to Lord Asmodeus, but merely to one devil of Dis rather than another, is that they think you will be much better at creating devils.  I am wondering whether the correct way of training devils might - produce a devil whose arts of slavery are more like my arts, at the end."

"I have given some thought as to whether to request, as a reward for all my own service in this matter, to be Petrified until a thousand years after your own death, in hopes of being received by you in Hell."

" - that's what I was thinking too. Or - 

- not specifically you, I don't know enough about you to know if I have anything to teach you, but Hell values the Project girls, so Hell can't be imagining that the point of us is to turn us into Contessa Lrilatha, because they already know how to do that. ...I guess we could just figure out how to do it more efficiently. But it seems to me like there's something Hell wants us to learn how to improve. And so the best answer to the girls is that I'm going to make sure that Hell is a place where they grow. Except. 

They're not going to believe that, because it sounds completely ridiculous."

"We do have the option of swearing to Asmodeus of the truth of those things that we might tell them, by which we ourselves have come to suspect this.  It doesn't do to overuse that option, lest they come to expect it and suspect all unsworn is lies.  But it is an option, when you need to tell a fellow Asmodean something ridiculous and true - if you are about Asmodeus's own work, that is, lest you invoke His name for only your own benefit."

"There is also some degree of corroboration, if the Queen is willing to declassify it for them."

Jacint Subirachs hands Sevar a brief report written in the hand of and under the name of Abrogail Thrune, marked with nearly the most extreme possible Crown seals and penalties.

The Queen notes that this report was written after she reviewed the most recent batch of Project Lawful reports, including Sevar's apparent price in Hell and Keltham's speculation about what younger devils may not be allowed to know.  The Queen remarks that both of these facts were of higher urgency than they were treated as, and future such points should be reported to her immediately rather than batched.

After that review, the Queen at once set aside all her other work to inquire certain matters separately of Lrilatha and Gorthoklek.  And then summoned a series of devils herself, up to the most powerful she could summon without that being a grave matter.

The results show that the most powerful devils the Queen can lightly summon - admittedly, not mighty ones by Hell's standards - seem entirely ignorant of matters like whether there are twenty-one or twenty-three pairs of packages of heredity-specification in a human body.  Lrilatha answered correctly, but also answered affirmatively when asked if she had come by that information by way of Keltham.

Gorthoklek, who is nearly royalty of Hell (though, the Queen notes, relatively young for a pit fiend), cannot answer; and if Gorthoklek is shown the information by way of Keltham, he can then answer regarding what he has seen in the report, but he still cannot answer the question on his own terms.

The Queen speculates that the price for why Hell can seemingly back Cheliax to a greater degree than other Outer Planes back their mortal worshippers, is that Asmodeus and His highest slaves are extremely constrained in what they tell those beneath them in Hell who hold more commerce with mortals; saving perhaps the very highest devils who can perfectly avoid leaking any such information by any pathway.  Such enforced ignorance, in exchange for power in the mortal world, seems not discordant with His aspect of tyranny.

The Queen speculates that there is however no prohibition against a soul being allowed to retain and use such knowledge that it learned in life.  For if this is not so, Sevar's price in Dis seems inexplicable.

The Queen inquired of Gorthoklek upon all of this matter, and Gorthoklek said nothing to all of it, nor encouraged any of it, but neither did Gorthoklek call it prohibited.

"Oh."

It's not in itself very important how many pairs there are in humans, devils might just have no occasion to know it, but.

The Outer Planes have secrets, everyone knows that. And Hell has the most secrets; few can even set foot in Nessus, Hell's deepest layer. And the gods are sharply constrained in what interference treaty permits them. Asmodeus sent Gorthoklek and Contessa Lrilatha to Cheliax as advisors; Abadar has done no such thing in Osirion, that anyone knows of. No angel sits at the right shoulder of Queen Galfrey in Mendev, the paladin of Iomedae who holds her country's border with the Worldwound. 

So the shapes of the constraints are different for different gods. 

Secrets not just about Asmodeus or about history, but about Law, about the fundamental nature of reality -

"If the project lasts even a few years, we'll know things that only senior devils know. And Hell wants us very badly, and will prize us highly.

I am tempted to tell the students the whole of the reason I didn't sell my soul at first, and the whole of my attempt to sell it yesterday, and then tell them that if in order to make my project work I have to set up an entirely new training program in Hell, then I'll do that, and the only thing they need to be afraid of is my failure. Does that sound right?"

"I think - there will be some for whom that will be enough, for Meritxell, it will be enough, for Gregoria enough, for Asmodia it will not be enough but perhaps she would be willing to serve in Golarion if not in Hell and that would be enough for us, Paxti and Yaisa are not thinking enough upon such matters for their thought-transcripts to be helpful and I know not what will become of them if they start thinking, contemplating that plan for Peranza gives me an uneasy feeling, and of the others I am not sure."

"Huh. I guess I can take them aside one at a time and start with the ones that I have a plan for. 

Are you worried for my soul? I feel loyal but I keep thinking that if I were a different person watching Carissa and adding up probabilities I would be worried, and - I want to be steerable."

"I'd be less worried if I did not feel concerned there were 'tropes' around you, or fear what they might arrange for you in the way of temptations.  I don't know what to do with such matters except plead like a helpless baby to the Most High each time they arise."

Sigh. "Okay. I have to get back to class." It has been eight minutes and that's likelier in the conspiracy world than in the bathroom world, if only a bit likelier. 

Off she goes.

Keltham was in fact pondering that, but decided that the evidence seemed slight enough to go under the heading of "orient more to Golarion first" rather than "note it on the list".  If you want to pick up tiny pieces of evidence like that you'd better also start noting all the times Carissa doesn't take an eight-minute bathroom break as evidence the other way.

Besides, if Yaisa and Asmodia are meant to be distractions on purpose they're impossibly obvious ones.

Ione would like it noted for the record that she strongly suspects Keltham is adding up additional Conspiracy evidence for every minute that this goes on, and she should really be allowed to just take Keltham aside and scold him properly for scaring everyone in alter-Cheliax.

(Security conveys Ione Sala's thoughts to Sevar.  Sala's other thoughts show a weary contempt for Asmodean idiocy, but an apparently sincere belief that Lord Nethys would want her to keep on bailing these idiots out of their own idiocy until that's obviously no longer tenable.  Sala is also contemplating trying to further advance her own relationship with Keltham, to make surer that she ends up with him if he leaves, and remains able to continue doing whatever Lord Nethys wishes her to do for him.)

(Also Sala is trying to figure out whether her interest in scolding Keltham is anything sexual or not, because she's definitely finding it strangely fascinating.)

Carissa agrees that Keltham is adding up further evidence from everything that happens, because he told them that he was doing that in so many words not five minutes ago. Ione seems a little attracted to this vision of herself as the lone genius who can see what no one else can but Carissa is in this case incredibly unimpressed. Carissa does not want Ione to have a conversation about how scary this would have been if they were, you know, actually in a secret conspiracy, into which Keltham can meaningfully interpret lots of random phrases or facial expressions. She really thinks that conversation is likelier if Ione has something secret to convey to Keltham than if she does not. 

And Ione's permission-denied was already communicated, which means that Ione thinks she's achieving what, exactly, by making the request again? Permission remains denied.  

Carissa doesn't know whether people get beaten for that in Taldor but someone should look it up. 

Security will put someone on it.  Note though that Ione Sala has a previous agreement with Elias Abarco about her being treated as a friendly Nethys worshipper rather than an Asmodean so long as she behaves herself.

If that gets unilaterally renegotiated, there will be a lot of Securities wanting to stand in line and take turns.

On getting back to the room Carissa takes a cookie and joins some other girls who are ranking the Securities by how much they look like they really hope Nidal attacks so they can kill someone, because if the people with individual questions for Keltham ceased immediately when she returned then that really would look suspicious. 

The cookie is delicious.

Message from Asmodia:  Asmodia requested a Fox's Cunning and Owl's Wisdom in order to actually be able to come up with interesting questions for Keltham on the fly like that, which is in fact harder than people might think and can't be reliably done on future occasions.

While she's still enhanced, Asmodia wants to say that she's worried about the lack of intraproject communication, and proposes that a Nap Stack be set up for everyone tonight so that they can all stay up and get caught up on everything that's happened so far, including whatever Sevar considers to be the official line on Asmodia, and on Keltham's romance-pattern theory that they don't want him believing.

Also Ione asked Asmodia if she did in fact have superpowers, and was now one of the special girls like Keltham thought.  Asmodia told Ione that Milani came to her inside Hell and granted her the power to cancel enchantment-compulsions by hitting people on the head (not true).  It only occurred to Asmodia afterwards that there is probably some kind of policy constraining information about Keltham's pattern-theory, since Asmodia hadn't already been told about it earlier.  This is the sort of thing Asmodia thinks the Nap Stack plan might solve.

A Nap Stack allowing for an evening briefing would be great. It'll oblige all the girls to sleep in a 30 foot radius and Carissa can't predict whether Keltham will want her in his bed tonight but maybe they can be ready to cast it tonight if she can join them and tomorrow if she can't. 

Carissa told Ione that Asmodia did not have superpowers. She's not totally impressed that Ione also asked Asmodia. Carissa would love for Asmodia to be more candid with her about what exactly they're covering for, but in the absence of that, the line on Asmodia is that she doesn't have superpowers, obviously, because if she did then that would have been reported to the Crown.