Hell is truth seen too late.
- Thomas Hobbes
Pilar is in a state of existential panic, not that this shows on her face.
She's a slave of Asmodeus. Slave. What do slaves of Asmodeus do with this amount of money? Can she - is she supposed to - donate it to the Church of Asmodeus?
Pilar.
This is how Lawful Good paladins think, Pilar.
Do you actually know how Asmodean theology works literally at all, Pilar.
Asmodia silently unfolds and then holds up a sheet of paper saying:
PREDICTION: Keltham tries to torment me by claiming he'll only pay me 75gp/week, which is less than he's planning to pay anyone else here.
Probability: 95%.
It's practically like being back in Civilization.
Keltham partially unfolds and holds up his own scrap of paper, still half-folded.
Col 1: Ordinary Asmodia
Col 2: Conspiracy Asmodia
Col 3: Time-traveling Asmodia (1 loop only)
Probability that:
- Her sheet of paper predicts I troll her: .90 | .70 | .90
- If so, that her sheet of paper estimates a probability: .40 | .60 | .90
Carissa attempts some quick math in her head to figure out whether Keltham net updated in favor of Conspiracy off this and therefore whether she needs to punish Asmodia. She is quickly coming to despise both of them, which is probably not the most helpful attitude to have about this, put a pin in that and come back to it later.
Asmodia's sheet of paper predicting the outcome is a 9/7 update for regular over Conspiracy, the inclusion of a number is 6/4 in favor of Conspiracy, so on net an update for Conspiracy, ha, she'll get to punish Asmodia for it. Though it'd be better if she'd thought to predict in advance that Asmodia's paper-writing spree of excessive cleverness whatever the details would net persuade Keltham towards Conspiracy.
"I'm going to hold off on conceding anything until you show us the probability you assigned that I'd have a second side to my sheet of paper," says Asmodia.
"Of course."
Keltham unfolds his own sheet of paper.
...and that she predicts my prediction of her: .60 | .10 | .80
"Conspiracy Asmodia would love to have me believe that I'm thinking one level ahead of her while she's actually thinking one level ahead of me," Keltham says.
SHE WAS FUCKING THINKING THAT. AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH SHE NEEDS TO LEARN THIS FASTER.
Nothing shows on her face. She cannot pause in horror she must be alterAsmodia now and she has the headband to enforce that on herself. "Or I, you know, have literally been doing this less than a day. Now what's on the other side of your paper? Some way of tormenting me yet more, 75%, nothing, 25%."
And THIS is why you don't try to get into cleverness contests with Keltham, you fucking idiot - actually, Security, communicate to Asmodia straight up orders that the next time she comes up with something incredibly clever to do, she does not do it literally regardless of the details of what it is.
....and communicate the same thing to Ione.
Keltham flips his paper all the way over.
Actual probabilities:
Predicts: .80 | .40 | .90
Probability: .50 | .60 | .90
Predicts 2nd: .40 | .20 | .80
"Conspiracy Asmodia mostly wouldn't try playing this game against me in the first place, it's too potentially revealing. Unless she's already sure of how I'd update off her not playing, of course, but she probably hasn't seen enough of me to be sure what level I'd think on here."
"Welcome to Civilization, Asmodia. You'll do just fine."
The order stands even though Carissa's going to have to recalculate the actual change in Keltham's predictions to figure out whether she can punish Asmodia or not.
Also, she notes that the path to Evil for Keltham plainly lies in his conviction that lying to and manipulating people is completely fine and in fact hilarious as long as you are trolling them. Some people should start thinking about lies and manipulations that are satisfactorily Evil even with the apparent constraint that you later declare them to have been 'trolling'.
AlterAsmodia has not been scared at any point during this conversation and speaks accordingly. "I'm confident in my new ability to explain the Law of Probability in words. What the two of us just did, not so much."
"Yeah, I wouldn't have done that to a boy. The first two layers, maybe, not the third one."
Gregoria is in fact pretty sure that Asmodia cannot explain 1) whether the announcement of their pay was real or was part of an elaborate manipulative/flirtatious game with Asmodia 2) whether the announcement of Asmodia's pay was real or part of an elaborate manipulative/flirtatious game with Asmodia 3) what share of the lessons in general are manipulative/flirtatious games.
Which - honestly manipulative/flirtatious games seem way more Asmodean than everything they were doing last week but she'd gotten used to doing a different thing and now she needs to switch back?
She conceals her distress about this, obviously.
Carissa is at this point incredibly confused about what dath ilanis believe about mixing sex and work but....in a positive direction, she thinks? The more incredibly unprofessional Keltham is being the more they can get past him? Probably?
Meritxell at no point thought they were not playing manipulative/flirtatious games at least ten times as much as they are 'building Civilization' but she's incredibly upset that she didn't get a +6 headband to master probability and comprehend everything! She could have done it! And she's far more loyal than Asmodia!