"I'm being punished in accordance with ordinary Asmodean law and that has not, actually, been an impairing degree of punishment because that does not serve Asmodeus either. But noted, and we should speak privately so that if we are erring terribly we minimize how far the error spreads. And we can avoid actually naming any entities, while we discuss."

"Acknowledged."

"So - I think one way of looking at this - is that we can think in terms of - this normal effect that our actions have, and then a second effect that they have through - making universes exist or not exist, or maybe, making Golarions get or not get Kelthams."

"And Keltham's Law is later going to contradict me about that, because Law isn't the sort of thing that should have 'normal' effects and 'second' effects, it'll just be about effects, somehow.  But we don't have that Law and I don't know how to think about it that way, yet."

"If there's - just one Keltham who has to be somewhere and just one Golarion who gets him and all the other ones don't exist - then - I think we can not talk about demon lords in order to not have them appear?  Or, no, maybe that choice is like - having it retroactively be the case - that we don't exist and this world isn't here - except, it's not like we blink out of existence or anything, it's that instead there's always all along been some Asmodia and some Sevar who arrived at a decision more convenient to the tropes.  And we're having this conversation after it was all decided, but that conversation has its effects before it was all decided, so we have to pretend it hasn't been decided yet, because where the conversation matters, it wasn't."

"This is so much not what the actual Law is going to sound like, I can already tell.  The Law isn't going to be about, do you look at it this way, go look at it that way.  There's just going to be one unifying principle that treats all the numbers the same way.  But I don't know what that principle is, and instead I have to try to work with, ideas, words, and hope they end up corresponding to true Law-fragments -"

"But if I had to guess at one of those fragments - maybe it would be something like - if you imagine that the tropes are about to start over and do this all again, and we're getting to advise the Sevars and Asmodias inside the worlds the tropes are selecting from, what do we tell them to do?  And then the answer to that will have to be the same as the answer to what that Law says we should actually do right now."

"If the number of Kelthams changes depending on what the Asmodias and Sevars do, I think we advise them to go ahead and talk naturally about powerful beings they don't want showing up, because in worlds where the tropes wanted to make a demon lord show up with a warning, our telling the Asmodias and Sevars never to mention them, means those worlds don't get Kelthams.  I'm glad my world got a Keltham and I expect you're even more so."

"If there's one Keltham or a fixed number..."

"I can't actually figure it out.  It seems like this weird twisty sideways thing.  Pause to get a Cunning on me?"

Carissa gestures for someone to do that. "Helpful for me to speculate off what you said or no?"

"I would take any help whatsoever at this point, yes."

"If there's a fixed number of Kelthams and the tropes allocate them to the set of Golarions that produce the most interesting stories, then trying to be interesting on purpose is just competing with other worlds like us, and we shouldn't; if there's a fixed number of Kelthams and the tropes allocate them to the set of worlds which aren't necessarily Golarion that produce the most interesting stories, then we want to be interesting because while I think we don't care if Keltham lands in this Golarion or a similar one we care a lot if he lands in Golarion or some other world that's not Golarion. ....I guess you might also specifically care that he lands at this moment in history and not a thousand years ago or a thousand years in the future, I care less about that I think..."

"Arguendo," another Kelthamism.  "Why wouldn't we compete with other worlds like us?  Maybe whoever best serves the tropes wins their favor and there's nothing we can do to change that game, just try to play it."

"Serving the tropes competes with other goals like keeping Keltham happy and building Civilization. We're better off in the world where none of the instances of us are directing effort towards trope-service than the world where all of us are going full power on it, assuming we have the same odds of winning Keltham either way."

"So remember the question of how long it takes Cheliax's current form of government to explode after introducing Keltham to it, and whether you could find Counts who weren't ilani, to replace any ilani Counts who got ideas about not responding to threats?  I think that logic only works if there's no Sevars who decide to serve the tropes."

"I don't see why I would decide differently than other Carissae, we're presumably using the same decision process so ought to arrive at the same conclusion."

"So the question is whether there's somebody who is almost entirely like you, in whatever Golarions are out there, who would, faced with this situation, choose to - maybe the politer term would be, go along with the tropes.  Somebody who'd be just as seductive of Keltham, but not somebody who - thinks exactly like that, about tropes."

" - maybe. If she was slightly less inconvenienced by them and thought of them as the reason she's become so powerful."

(Security didn't tap Asmodia with Cunning right away.  They have a few third-circles on staff who are doing nothing but enhancement, now, though not Asmodia's requested ten such.  One of those is hurried in to cast a Cunning on her.)

Asmodia requests a moment to think for a bit after getting Cunninged.  Many of her thoughts are screened; hopefully Security is not Detecting right now, since Keltham isn't around, but worst-case she's still got the Gorthoklek order.

...so the way that she thinks this actually works, is that any world has something like a Resistance or Vulnerability to the tropes, or a Difficulty Check for the tropes.  The decisions Sevars make within the world can possibly make their world harder or easier for the tropes to manifest in, though, obviously, the Sevars may not know which choices of theirs really do that.  They also don't know the tropes' strength, what amount of Vulnerability they need or Resistance they can overcome.

You could, at the very least, if deciding not to talk about any other demon lords, which makes things more difficult for the tropes, try offsettingly to do something nice for the tropes, to keep it all in balance?  Or maybe you've got to do a lot of nice things for the tropes, or somebody has to, before they can get to your universe at all?

...Nethys, Cayden Cailean, and her own sponsor, possibly seem to think that their correct move is facilitating the tropes.

......but Asmodia can't tell if this is something those gods are creating the appearance of, and want Sevar to believe; or something they're treating as their own hidden power and special tactic, which Asmodia should not reveal.

"This is unfortunately not a case where 4 more points of Intelligence immediately causes everything to become clear," Asmodia lies.  "I think we're at least not supposed to do anything that makes life more difficult for the tropes unless the Most High signs off on that."

"...okay. So, talking about powerful entities whose attention we don't want is fine, for now, unless they're the kind where that directly gets their attention." It does seem shaped like a problem for the Most High.

After Keltham and Yaisa have tromped off to their... whatever they're about to do... Peranza leans over confidentially towards Gregoria.  "So is anyone else feeling incredibly annoyed that Yaisa stole Keltham and now we don't get to hear about Miyalsvor?"

"Peranza, you're slipping, that was alterPeranza talking to alterGregoria.  I mean, it's the correct direction of mistake to make, if you've got to make one, but I worry if you slip that way maybe you'll slip the other way too."

"Acknowledged."

"Real Gregoria's also super mad about that, though," Gregoria says. "I don't see why we can't just learn about Civilization and have, like, one day a week to be unabashed sluts."

"Because if we don't corrupt Keltham for Lord Asmodeus, he eventually figures us out.  And unless an eighth-circle wizard is Detecting Thoughts on him right then, he commits suicide before we can stop him, goes to Axis, and gets raised by Osirion."

"Cheliax would still win because we'd have better Keepers than Osirion, Keepers who eventually would get further than Keltham dared to go himself.  But it would be a harder battle."

Pilar is hard to argue with because of the thing where she's more pious than you. Gregoria nods and only scowls slightly.

Ione honestly does not think that whole "corrupt Keltham with increasingly Evil sex" plan is going to work, ever, but it sure is more fun than a lot of other tasks you can get assigned in Cheliax.  She's on board until this all explodes.  (As all things do in time, praise Nethys.)

"Report on how Yaisa's doing with Keltham," Carissa asks Security, though she hasn't been urgently interrupted so probably it's not a catastrophe.

Security soon hands her a transcript of their meeting.

(Sfw tldr version here.)

She scans it for things that belong in Asmodia's orange or red columns. Nope, nope, nope, does Yaisa have to be so smug, nope... she hands it back to Security. "You'll have to look later, he's on his way back, but basically worked great," she adds to Asmodia quietly.

Keltham is in fact on his way back!

But looks busy, and doesn't talk to anyone right away.  Keltham instead strides over to Maillol's office, to check if Governance had any comments on his informal proposal for an interim contract between Cheliax and Project Lawful.  Or any comments they might have on his articles of incorporation for Project Lawful.  And pick up the papers for candidate employees to talk about with Carissa.

He also briefly queries Maillol about the all-in costs if Keltham wants to straight-up employ Yaisa himself, while having her retain living quarters on Project Lawful, and gives Maillol early warning on that possibility / requests that things should be configured now to allow that later.  Not that their relationship advanced anything like that far, or that Yaisa has even indicated any such interest, Keltham just prefers to keep that option open for later.