"Keltham -

If we do that at all it'll be because of you. And - I actually think I'll still like you better."

"Well, if that's true, it could only possibly be because of me materializing into a world where that would be true.  But we're pretty sure that was going on at least with dropping me on you at the Worldwound, even if nowhere else in all of this.  So fine and fair enough, I guess."

Security notifies them that the girls say they're done.

He'll head on back.  While he does, he'll ask a question.

"Carissa.  Am I right that 'girls' is not a particularly respectful form of address for Project Lawful's tier-1 and tier-2 researchers reporting to me?"

" - yeah, a little out of line. Though I've been doing it too. They're just all girls, see, and it's very salient."

"Civilization has, like, shorter respectful words to pluralize a flock of brilliant young researchers, female or otherwise.  I'm not sure that I want to go around making people say 'researchers' all the time, that's a lot of syllables compared to 'girls'... I don't suppose you have any other title suggestions there?"

Slaves. It's not what she'd suggest in alter Cheliax. "Not especially? You could ask everyone in case anyone thinks of something I haven't."

"Going on the language patterns, I'm guessing 'Lawfies' doesn't sound great in Taldane, so, probably not that one.  In Baseline you'd address them as 'raht', but that doesn't mesh well with Taldane either..."

Back they are to Breakout Room 4!

(Per a new directive, Security has been copying all the girls continuously on new facts about alterCheliax as Sevar has spoken them to Keltham.)

Well, at least Ione doesn't need to frantically invent an excuse if Keltham asks why she didn't say anything, since Ione already figured out her excuse on that subject earlier, as soon as her request to warn Keltham got turned down, thereby making that excuse predictably necessary later.

If Ione was still an Asmodean, she'd be asking about whether she got to torture Sevar, still on her standard punishment regimen, about this, but she's not, so she isn't.

"So actually even before I ask for your verdict, I should quickly mention, and apologize, for a social error:  When I talked about the Conspiracy hypothesis, I was assuming in the back of my mind that you'd know Civilized dath ilani in an Ordinary world, even one like Golarion, would be pretty unlikely to screw up and suddenly decide they were in the Conspiracy world for wild reasons.  In other words, I thought anyone in the Ordinary world would know they were safe, and could just say whatever they wanted about that, since, after all, anything they actually do is something that somebody in the Ordinary world would do, and I would figure that out in the limit."

"Carissa has observed to me that people in Golarion may not know and trust to this safety in the same way, and also mentioned that - albeit possibly less in the new Cheliax you grew up in, than the older Cheliax she remembers - accusing people of being in a conspiracy often goes along with demanding their heads.  That is not the way that I think about things, though Carissa thought you'd probably seen enough of me to guess that."

"If I made anyone nervous for either reason, I apologize."

"I mention this swiftly and now, just in case you were thinking that I was thinking that only somebody in the Conspiracy would object to their equity allocations or salaries.  I tell you now that this is not at all the case."

"Do you need any further time to reconsider given that update?"

There's a chorus of nos.  A couple of researchers, the ones more confident in their own acting abilities, allow themselves to look slightly relieved.

Anything 'slight' isn't going to make it across the expression-reading gap.

"Your verdict on the general proposal, then?"

"It's great and we're going to be rich," Meritxell says. "I always wanted a pet pseudodragon so I might buy one, fair warning."

"I'll say it again, don't assume that your slowly vesting share allocations are the same thing as wealth in hand.  They're tokens of a plan to become wealthy, a cunning scheme we're hatching together which might not work; those shares are not, yet, wealth whose existence and continued existence you can trust in and make plans based upon.  This is a standard and proverbial warning out of Civilization."

"If by rich you just meant your base salaries, that's fine."

"Yep, the pseudodragon is three weeks of the pay that's definitely happening. I'm mostly not thinking about the rest."

"Then great."

"I'm off to talk to Maillol."

"I misunderstood your proposal for what to say to Keltham and the thing you actually wanted to do was fine and not stupid. I apologize." says Carissa flatly to Ione.

"My excuse to Keltham will be that I thought maybe the rest of you would not want me to say that on your behalf, and I hadn't then been appointed Nethysian officer in charge of preventing Asmodeans from hurting themselves, so I agonized about it a bit and then didn't say anything."

"I accept your apology on behalf of Lord Nethys, Sevar.  Good luck doing the same with Asmodeus."

Heretics are really annoying. That's probably why they're illegal.

Maillol to Sevar:  Keltham wants to know, since I thought a similar new recurring expense a week later wouldn't be a good look, about his advance-requesting capacity to hire up to another eight 200gp/week researchers at similar but nonbonus salaries, though he expects he might end up with 4 more 200/week people and 4 more 100/week people instead.  He's also inquiring what if anything I know about Cheliax sending him more job candidates.

(Subirachs has previously mentioned that she expects to have candidate portfolios ready for Sevar to review with her, arriving with tomorrow morning's mail.)

You should have applicants for him tomorrow; hiring eight would be a big lift for you politically, maybe he can teach us some metalworking or something with immediate self-demonstrating value, which would make it go over easier?

Keltham nodded along about early-application stuff, says that he needs to work out some sort of interim-contract-meant-to-be-replaced so he can get moving on that, and try to have that contract in place before anyone gets a permanent job offer.

Keltham wants to know how Cheliax is likely to feel about sending him people on one-week tryouts while he's trying to find one thing in his memories that clearly adds value, on 300gp-for-a-week contracts like the last ones, and with probabilistic warnings about the fate of the last set of 11 applicants given their prior Intelligence and Wisdom scores.