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?

"Either one can be at 20% above the Worldwound wage," Carissa the previous day said to Maillol, "and he'll be happy. And that's low enough we don't have to explain why the girls aren't getting lots of fancy magic items either."

12gp/week minimum in both cases, which is 20% above the Worldwound wage for wizards with their experience.  For the secret project that'd be a normal wage, or it might turn out to pay a bit better but not much.  For the onsite project it'd be generous.  But Cheliax does understand the concept of good incentives to suddenly volunteer on secret projects you might fail out of.

Thank you.  Those are better options than Keltham was afraid he'd have for them, and make him feel better about this; he is very glad to know that they won't be financially worse off for having tried to deal with him.

(Utterly predictable.)

Have them called in, then... should he let them get breakfast first, or... no, because then they'll be around Meritxell and the others having to conceal their knowledge.

Please have them called in here individually once they've prepped spells or are otherwise available to be called, and please have snacks or light breakfast foods available to them when here in case they're hungry.

...sure.

(Even most Abadar clerics aren't that bad.)

Time for the worst part of any startup-founding experience, including the part where your project site gets invaded by minions of a torture-god or... actually not as bad as the part where you worry 150,000,000 people are going to die because of you being there, nevermind, that was worse.

Who's in first to get fired?

Pela did her hair somewhat elaborately this morning, on account of waking up early. After extensive discussions with Sevar she concluded that alterPela would ask if this was decided already or if she was allowed to have a counterargument, so she's going to do that. 

She didn't sleep much the last couple nights, but Keltham shouldn't be able to notice that.

People's one-week contracts are up.  1/3 of the wizards seem to be doing great at absorbing Law, 1/3 are plausibly on trajectory to form a productive second tier, 1/3 seem to be struggling.  Pela's among the final third, and her options include looking for another secret project guaranteed to pay 12gp/week minimum, or 20% higher than Worldwound pay, or taking an onsite option here for 12gp/week and tutelage in some skill and continued interaction with her friends, going to Hell for at most 5 years or until the knowledge she has isn't deemed hazardous, whichever comes first, or her choice of other afterlives if say she likes what Pilar has to say about Elysium and Cayden Cailean is on board.  Though Keltham admits to not knowing the details of how that would work exactly.

Sorry.

Oh. 

Is this decided already or can they disagree with it.