At the Worldwound they solve mania with lashes but she's not actually sure how they do it in Taldor. 

Message to Security for Maillol if he's awake: this is a standard problem with a standard solution, right? What is the standard solution. 

"Problem two?"

Reply from Security:  Maillol's asleep long since.  But while I don't exactly understand your policy against torture, by this point, slapping her hard enough to knock her over isn't torture, it's medicine.

She wasn't FINISHED but FINE "Okay but before we go on to Problem #2 you didn't get that far, right, you didn't get all of that without the more powerful headband I need, you can see I'm talking like Keltham and completing the Law of Probability and maybe I'm not really a dath ilani but I'm also not really not a dath ilani anymore -"

Carissa hits her. Not hard enough to knock her down only because she's a wizard and doesn't do a lot of hitting people with her actual hands and isn't that strong. 

"Asmodia. You are not a dath ilani. You are in an altered state. This was conveyed to you, by me, ten minutes ago, but you did not listen because you are being impervious to information, which is not very dath ilani at all. I'm very close to locking you up until you sober up, but I'm curious if all this Law you've learned will let you react appropriately to this information all on your own."

Being hit is like a cold rush of water, interrupting the cycle of whatever part of her had won and won and been terrified by Rugatonn and then won again, and stayed to try to win more, and devised more and more complicated plans with Ione arguing but not actually authorized to hurt her, at some point she'd started thinking she was immune to everything and not just to Hell.

"I... suspect I need to try not to do anything for thirty minutes, maybe reading will work, I don't know, and if that doesn't work somebody needs to set my hand on fire for thirty seconds, and if that doesn't work somebody needs to hit me with a sleep spell for an hour.  I apologize.  I can show you the equation for #6 and sketch the theory for #7 but should not try to explain any implications."

Carissa feels enormously relieved. Not just that Asmodia is recovered but that hurting people works. Not that she didn't believe that. 

"Sure, write it out for me and then go read a history of Taldor or something, one of the dry ones."

Asmodia writes down the equation that a far distant place might call Conservation of Expected Evidence, and then, which takes longer, a brief sketch of the idea of filtered evidence and that P(they tell you about the 4th coinspin ◁ the 4th coinspin came up Queen) being a necessary item of evidence to take into account and not just P(the 4th coinspin came up Queen) in order to not violate Keltham's #6.

"There are important implications and I still think you should hear about those before composing a final version of your report to the Most High.  But not having a headband for another day won't kill me, so long as I don't start thinking I can kill the pharaoh of Osirion to steal his crown, again."

She should NOT kidnap Keltham to trade him for the crown, even if she could.  That is not what her Sponsor probably wants.

"If you pull this off, we'll all be rich beyond our wildest imagining and I'll see you given a headband fancier than any yet conceived on Golarion. We have to win first, though. Go take a rest."

Asmodia goes.

She hopes it is possible for her now to function without a headband, as opposed to her previous wearing of an overpowered headband having left ideas embedded in her mind that only a more powerful mind is competent enough to contain without going mad - is that why there are Keepers -

She needs to not think about that.  Thirty minutes, boring history of Taldor.

Maybe it was just being happy that did it.  She's... well, in retrospect, she's never actually been happy before, not really.  Maybe her mind just didn't know how to handle that inside.

...Asmodia hopes one of these days she can be really happy, somewhere that isn't Cheliax, and just fly away like that, safely, and return to the ground when she tires herself out, to sleep.

An hour before dawn she gathers the not-fired students and also Security around for the great big project briefing. She's already told bits and pieces of the whole story, to various students, as it seemed necessary to assuage various specific worries of theirs, but saying it in front of everyone makes it clear that she didn't select the stories she told them, and that they're insiders, now, among the very few in Cheliax who know what's really going on. 

It's a long story. Her voice is getting hoarse.

"I was irritated, at first, about the rumors, but the judgment of people more experienced than I was that they are completely inevitable. This is, unambiguously, the most important thing that has happened in Golarion since the death of Aroden, and arguable the most important thing that has ever happened; we are at the center of it; our successes and our failures will not go unnoticed. The Queen is not only reading our transcripts, she is reading our thought-transcripts. One of the rumors is that every devil in Dis knows my name, which must be false, but all the contract devils do, necessarily. 

Do you want your names to be known? Pride is one of Our Lord's domains; you may think, if you'd like, on what you'd do with money and power and titles and all else that would result from our triumph. But the path ahead is very narrow. We are not worth that much yet; it is simply the judgment of those wiser than us that we might be. And in deference to their judgement, I am doing everything in my power to unlock the value in you all, wherever it's found, and to build in Cheliax and if necessary in Hell a system that can use you to your fullest potential. It will succeed spectacularly, or it will fail spectacularly; there is no middle ground.

Go to your rooms and prepare your spells, and if you think of anything at all that might be a barrier to unlocking all the value in you, bring it to me. Dismissed."

And she has a bit of the post-combat high herself, at that, though she's not as childish as Asmodia, and doesn't show it.

Security message to Sevar:  We've been ordered to tell you:  Keep it strictly professional, she'll also keep it strictly professional, she will not read your thought transcripts from while she's in your presence because you're not ready for that.

"Actually, why don't you all stick around another moment," Abrogail Thrune II says pleasantly, dropping her Invisibility.

Thank you for the heads-up, Security. Carissa manages to keep her face convincingly-to-everyone-in-the-room-but-Abrogail calm as she kneels.

Abrogail waits until not only the Security with appropriate combat reflexes, but the younger wizards who manage to be paralyzed with horror for half a second, have succeeded in kneeling.

"First.  Many of my subordinates in the Asmodean hierarchy, from time to time, find it in their best interest to tell their own subordinates that their project is of vast value to Cheliax, to Hell, to Asmodeus, or of course, to me.  In most cases they speak falsely, and in many of those, dishonestly.  I don't consider this a flaw in my regime.  If you are weak enough of mind to believe what you should not believe, you deserve what you get."

"This does create a problem of justified skepticism within those very rare projects that are of vast importance."

"I hope this problem to be easily corrected, when I say that I am not in the habit of visiting on behalf of those overenthusiastic subordinates to address their underlings and back up their stories.  As, perhaps, a clever mind might expect some important people would do, if the project was actually important."

"Consider it confirmed from my own mouth and affirmed by my presence, that the Queen of Cheliax considers this project to be possibly vastly important."

"Getting information out of Hell is often harder than torturing it out of paladins.  They will not tell us of prices in Dis, but we can learn buyers.  Your new owners are of rarefied heights.  It seems that Hell also considers you, and I do mean you personally, to be potentially important."

"With matters indeed being that important, after walking around and seeing the disarray things are in, I've decided that this project is not ready to resume operations today.  You are not organized, you are not actually rested, you have not rehearsed your new stories, and you are not caught up on your paperwork."

"Keltham is currently a statue resting in his bed.  This is not usually an option for deceiving important people, because they have some notion of the current date, and will notice if days suddenly go missing.  In this case, nobody does seem to have informed Keltham of the current date at any point, according to his transcripts.  Let's not tell him for a while longer unless he asks."

"The key resource that this project burns with every working day is not some timer in the outside world, but Keltham's time aware and learning.  There is no point in spending that resource while you are not in good condition to make use of it.  I do not think you should skip more than one day like this at a time, Keltham may notice that you change too much from night to dawn if you do this often; but for this day, and mayhap the day after Keltham's next true day, it will give you a chance to catch up while waiting on your Rings of Sustenance."

"The Nap Stack was a clever idea, dear little ambitious Asmodia.  But you are not as yet any match for the cleverness of myself, nor Keltham when he puts his mind to it.  And no, that is not a problem you could solve by stealing my crown from me, it is a skill that enhancement alone does not convey.  The Nap Stack was clever, but it was not cleverness enough to save you had there been trouble.  You are not ready, this minute, if Keltham starts taking matters seriously when next he wakes.  You are not ready, even, if he asks for a Fox's Cunning while Ione has not yet solved her riddle.  There is a terrible gap between being clever, and being clever enough.  To contain and deceive Keltham you must learn to be clever enough."

"Use today to get better organized.  Though each of you must actually get three hours' rest, this time; your Queen commands it."

"Oh, and also this:"

"While I have no intention of disturbing Carissa's experiments while they yet seem to be bearing fruit, there are limits to merciful experiments.  Should you knowingly, deliberately, and unambiguously betray Hell's vital interests here, then, after you have been executed and your owner asks after your life, let them see this within your thoughts:  That the Queen of Cheliax did instruct them in Asmodeus's name and as His incentive to make you suffer the most they possibly can, even at the cost of their own profit.  Be it clear, I am not talking about the kind of betrayal you can accomplish by accident or while trying even slightly not to, I mean deliberately attempting to enlighten Keltham or selling out the site to Lastwall.  With all the talk of diminished punishment going around, accompanied by other talk of pride and vast rewards, it seemed prudent to remind you that there are limits."

"If Carissa achieves even a tenth of her ambitions within her lifetime, if you contribute even the fiftieth part of the work towards that, there is not one Asmodean among you who could not be a Duchess in the new Golarion we would conquer.  That in life, and after to be among the higher devils in Hell, coming to it already a being of Law.  Though Asmodia, I'm given to understand, has already had jurisdiction of her own fate claimed by my colleague the Most High, which I will not dispute."

"As I confirm what Carissa told you of this project's importance, I also confirm what she told you of the rewards if you succeed, such as fall within the Queen's hands to give."

"Now you are dismissed."

The Queen of Cheliax is gone.

- petrify Keltham to give them some time to organize. Of course. Why didn't she think of that. 

Because Abrogail is actually better than her, truly and actually better than her. She serves someone worthy in ways she can understand, not just in mysterious ways that aren't meant to make sense to mortals. 

"If," she says with her voice mostly steady, "you thought I was lying to you, or exaggerating, that I had not absorbed enough of dath ilan to make this project Lawful in the manner in which its government is, well, now you know otherwise, and next time perhaps you'll think a little differently. Let's all go get some rest."

PL-timestamp:  Day 8 (7) / Morning

Keltham wakes!  It's another bright day in Cheliax... well, not literally bright, some rainclouds seem to have blown up overnight, but, same essential principle.

...oh, wait, he's got to fire some people today, doesn't he.  First thing in the morning, that should probably be, if Maillol has his options-to-offer in.

Keltham prays for his cleric spells, once again requesting a whole lot of Wisdom.  There's no personality to the reply he receives, as there hasn't been since coming to the new site, nor any unrequested spells received; but he does receive all his spells and that hopefully indicates that his god is okay at all with whatever barrier has been erected here to keep out non-allied deities.

Maillol's office first, then.

Maillol looks just as worn as he did yesterday!

Tough job and, at least over the next hour or few, Keltham's job won't be a great one either.

What options does Cheliax have for Paxti, Jacme, Pela, and Yaisa?

Over tea and biscuits yesterday afternoon, out in the yard because they're really not getting much sunlight while Keltham is active, Carissa and Maillol worked these out. 

The options are:

There is another secret project that can accept second-circle wizards; the girls would have to be screened for suitability, and might not prove suitable, in which case they could pick one of the other options.

They can go to Hell for not longer than five years, shorter if Keltham and Cheliax agree they no longer know any state secrets.

They can go to the afterlife of an allied god, if they'd rather that than Hell and the allied god promises the same secrecy Hell could provide; the cost of this is hard to estimate, but it seems like maybe the kind of thing Cayden Cailean would agree to. 

They can remain on site and get a tutor to teach them some useful and valuable magic, and interact socially with the core project girls; this might be healthy anyway, so the girls can have some friends and romantic partners who aren't their collaborators in a high-stakes project.

Keltham undergoes some slight blinks about the 'romantic partners' part - homosexuality is statistically-ambient three-people-you-know-personally in dath ilan, but biromanticism is rarer than that, though still not unheard-of (and of course statistical rarity is meaningless to social acceptability per se).

But yeah, those sound like basically decent options.  Keltham will see how the nonretained wizards react.  If it seems okay to them, that may be good enough.  Otherwise he'll decide where to go from there.

For the onsite option or the other-secret-project option, is there a relevant wage quote he can tell them?