As the view goes past the Fourth Planet, Keltham says, "This is the furthest that people from Civilization have ever traveled and survived."  Certain others will be picked up eventually; the odds on saving their True Lives are not ninety-seven percent, but they're over fifty percent, and in a planet of a billion people, somebody will think that's an acceptable risk.

The return journey past the Moon shows, in just a tiny glimpse, a lit section in darkness.  "The Moon colony."

When the view reaches dath ilan, it shows the sun-side, and the view dives in, as the video usually does, to the City of Default.

You can see this particular city starting well above the atmosphere, though you wouldn't see much detail yet from that height even if this illusion was finer than a Silent Image can be.

She doesn't know what Dis would look like from the air. Probably it'd be cool. Probably it wouldn't be that cool.

They're now closer to the ground, going slower.  Things don't look far away, just small, and there's no sense of scale.  There's an island of metal blocks in the center of the image, and then beyond that some kind of grid laid on the ground, but you can't see the fine details of what's inside the grid.

The image is zooming in on the metal blocks in the center.

Maybe those tiny reflective rectangles now visible on the huge metal blocks are glass windows?  If that's true, these metal buildings are something like a hundred stories tall.

Well, this makes sense, because wizards build tall towers, and Nefreti Clepati specifically made a point of building hers slightly taller than the Black Dome, never mind how impossible that was, and probably a richer Civilization would be full of individual people having a tower-measuring contest, and the results would be very tall.

The image seems to be favoring one particular huge metal building.

It goes to one of the windows.

They're inside somebody's house.

In what seems like a very nice, very large, elegantly decorated office.  It's lit by multiple brilliant sconces to something approaching the light of a sunny day.

Within, what's probably meant to be Keltham, seen from behind, is sitting in a chair - it's probably a chair? - and doing something weird with his fingers to something that isn't going to make much more sense if you've never seen a chording keyboard-mouse before.

In front of him is a... flat thingy?

Then the flat thingy shows dath ilan, seen from space, and starts zooming out.

"'Computer.'  Connected to all the rest of Civilization, talk to somebody on the other side of the world, read most books in existence."

Carissa feels like she is being seduced, but seduced to what? This is already what's she's trying to build. And betraying Cheliax wouldn't build it, just prove to Hell that it is not compatible with Asmodeus's ultimate victory.

The view shifts away from Keltham in his chair, goes through a doorway, down a hallway with other open doorways.  They get a glimpse of Keltham's library, his random treasures room, his bathroom larger than many townsfolk's entire homes, complete with vast bathtub, his bedroom - that's probably a bed? - one rather incomprehensible and slightly disturbing glimpse of a dath ilani cuddleroom - a room clearly meant for receiving guests.

"My house module.  It's relatively large for somebody my age, by dath ilani standards, but I spent less money on my hobbies than most people.  It took sixty-seven days per year out of my labor to rent the module, plus twenty-one days per year for the location in Default.  I considered it worth it to not have to figure out how to fit all my stuff and activities into anywhere smaller -"

Keltham loses it.

Just the image, to be clear.  He's not breaking down in tears.  His voice only slightly cracked there.

"How long do you think it'll take from here."

"Hundred years, two hundred?  Or maybe fifty, if you go faster once you get going, because of all the things you can do with magic on top of everything we could do without it."

Ione doesn't have any approved dialogue that matches what she's feeling right now, so she just quietly goes over to where Keltham is standing and sits down next to his feet.  She'll get approval on some of her changed plans later.

No, there's one thing that alterIone absolutely says.  If she doesn't say it, that's suspicious.

"When you leave Golarion, I want to go with you."

"Noted."

"We can talk about that later, sometime."

Carissa suppresses a flicker of annoyance with Ione, notices she's been doing that a lot lately, contemplates how much of that annoyance is jealousy, and decides to figure this out later, maybe with Owl's Wisdom up. 

"Let's do it in forty," she says. 

"While taking Oathdays off at least once a month," says Gregoria, since apparently there's a deficit of people who'll say that sort of thing.

"It's not like digging ditches.  It doesn't necessarily go faster as you work longer hours or take fewer days off, any more than you can save time in the long run by not eating."  (Spoken by someone who's had all info about Rings of Sustenance carefully removed from his environment.)

"Speaking of which, I should get some food," and if they can tell he's also taking a moment to recover, good on their inferential capacities.

They get food themselves, and give him a minute.

Once he looks slightly recovered Carissa Messages him. 

The girls took what you said earlier to mean they should all attempt to seduce you now. So if you don't like that, you should say so in words before they get to it. And if you do like it, well, good luck.

Thank you for the warning, Keltham mouths back.

It now seems like much less of a panic situation than when he first realized he was trapped with a horde of amorous women in the villa library.

Partially it's that he's not in like some totally other dimension, well, he still is, but not quite so recently; and partially it's that he now knows any of them at all; and that he understands better what he might owe in return (not something unspoken that he won't be able to repay); and that the thought of his having that much mating value is no longer so shocking and unconsidered; and maybe it's even that he feels somehow a little more comfortable in his own skin, now that he's ever hurt Carissa in bed.

He'll get his food, then, and sit down among the amorous horde of women bent on mating with him.  Every man has to face them eventually.  This is wisdom.

Carissa will flash him an amused smile that she has absolutely no idea about the sincerity level of, and sit across the room where she can watch the mess in peace.

Well go ahead and flirt with him, then.  He awaits their lures.

The Queen of Cheliax stands in a high tower of her palace, one that lets her gaze over the city of Egorian surrounding it; a new city, but a thriving one.  The sun is setting but there will yet be people in the streets when it is gone, taverns and whorehouses open at night, open always.  There are enough souls about the palace with Rings of Sustenance to promote Egorian to the ranks of cities that know no rest.

"I see it," says Abrogail Thrune, letting the exultation that she feels fill her voice unhindered by concealment, only moderately enhanced by Splendour.  "I see Asmodeus's plan."

"Nothing good has ever happened to me after hearing those words."

"I guessed you would say that, Most High.  Indeed, that is why I spoke so.  Did I manage to hit on anyone's exact wording?"

Yes.  "I assume you have some purpose in bidding me here, other than amusing yourself wasting the time of your senior partner's more valuable slaves."

"I think I do see it, though.  Asmodeus's plan.  But I will not work around the edges of my current instructions in order to fulfill it better."

"Oh, good," Aspexia says dryly.  "What are you going to start doing differently, then.  Tell me of it, and how very predictable it would be to our Lord."

"I would devote additional resources to one of our current operations in a not especially creative fashion.  Would that suit you?"