That is costly to us if he does it for lots of people since we may end up losing a significant share of our most promising wizards, in wartime, but not costly in a way that can't be compensated for; cheaper if we can tell them up front it's Hell if they don't make it instead of setting up the fortress to accommodate a growing share of people not on the project. 

Looks weirded out.  Wants to know how many people he can try out without either results or having to do the Hell thing.

Probably another dozen, maybe two dozen.

Seems reassured, he expects to be fine with that.  Says, something in his memories has got to look quick and impressive.

He's done with me and heading out now.

No wait, he's back.

Wants to know how he goes about actually buying anything using his salary, since he assumes, maybe wrongly, that it's basically just not safe for him to leave the fortress.  Wants to know if his researchers get to leave the fortress, and if he can send along some sort of comms link to poke through magic item shops vicariously.  Better yet would be some sort of book with lots of items for sale and prices, that he can order from somewhere, but he'll be pleasantly surprised if that exists here.

Probably not safe for him to leave the fortress given what happened last time. He can scry people who are shopping for him and see everything they're doing, and if all the effort is being gone to to set that up, might as well do it for his girls too. There is not a book of items and prices. 

Keltham is heading out again.  Only Nethys knows if he'll actually get to you this time before he thinks of something else.

Keltham's back!  New salaries confirmed!  Tomorrow is your first payday if nothing goes wrong on Maillol's end.  Shopping can be done remotely via scries.

How do people feel about taking a break, versus just launching straight into Asmodia's attempt to replace Keltham in his next lecture?  Followed shortly after by her deducing everything else Keltham knows about Law from an equally small set of hints, thus replacing his Law lectures entirely and reducing him to the role of a rememberer of particular technology tricks?  Which to be clear is worth more than 2% equity if she can pull that off.

"We've sort of had a break while you were negotiating," Gregoria says. "Do you need one?"

"I'm young, in good health, and queued up a Lesser Restoration now that I actually have a book of cleric spells and know what that is.  I'll be fine."

"Let's head to the library, Asmodia, you're up."

"Wait!  You first need to tap everybody with an Owl's Wisdom who hasn't already had one."  Some of Ione's worry has been alleviated by Sevar trying to stay on top of things now, but that didn't happen in alterCheliax.  "That's Tonia, Meritxell, and Sevar among the survivors, unless they've already had one recently.  And Pilar."

"I did one last night, no bizarre revelations," says Tonia. "I think it helped with the homework."

"It has been three days for me though admittedly they were eventful days."

"I'll do it later," Meritxell says. "There have been a lot of interruptions and I'd like to please learn probability. If I have an existential crisis I'll say 'you were right Ione' and you know how much I'd hate that so you know I think I won't."

"And Pilar -"

Ione stops herself before saying that Pilar is by far the sanest person in this fortress, including herself and Keltham, and would be the one left alive to clean up the mess if everyone else was driven mad by Void-creatures.  That may not be true in alterCheliax.

"Uh, Pilar has it pretty together, in my own opinion, which is why I almost forgot to list her, but if she wants to -"

"I also expect I'll be fine waiting to try it slightly later."

"To the library, then, where Asmodia will enlighten all here save myself."  Keltham heads out first, what with him being the Leader and all that.

Okay Ione was going to say something there, and in a Tropes world, what she didn't say was important.  Pilar has sanity powers?  Pilar is actually three thousand years old?  Pilar shouldn't have any additional weird property that doesn't stem from either her Cayden Cailean stuff or her obligate fetish, but then, on that tropes logic, Asmodia shouldn't have had experienced that event leading to her getting a +6 Wisdom headband. And on non-tropes logic, Ione stopped herself from saying some much more mundane private info like how she's seen Pilar survive a demon attack.  Well, anyways.

All right, she's up.  She could do this better if she asks for a Cunning and a Splendour first, but - it's not clear if they want Keltham to know the full breadth of what the most enhanced version of Asmodia can do -

No!  Wrong question.  What does alterAsmodia do here?  She tries it the hard way first, before asking for more resources, because she doesn't think she can just plead for another 10 wizards to provide her more Cunning and Splendour as needed, and she's more impressive and valuable if she doesn't need it.

Her students file into the classroom, one true dath ilani among them taking what had been Asmodia's seat; and Asmodia, then, begins to hold forth upon the Law -

"Asmodia, you want, and for that matter I want, to ask people how far they think they got on their own on the seven problems, before you tell them your own versions of the answers."

...right.  Um.

How far do people think they got, and to what extent do they think they got - interesting meanings they could talk about, not just formulas?

Most of them got the first five, and Gregoria thinks she got six. They... think they get what they mean but only if it's not anything that profound.

Meritxell only got three because she was occupied last night, which she is cheerfully unapologetic about. 

Keltham definitely looks surprised and pleased; Asmodia possibly looks surprised and disappointed not to be that far ahead of everyone else.

"I did have to get a Fox's Cunning to get that far," Ione says.  "I'd have seen if anyone had an Owl's Wisdom left to use on top of Cunning if I still couldn't get it.  And I think Asmodia was taking a run at hers unenhanced, at first, before, uh, stuff happened.  If you're trying to figure out who's smarter than who, then you need to tell us to not use enhancements, or all use the same enhancements, I guess."

(Ione is the main one here who had to guess at her story instead of just living it; the interaction she had with Asmodia didn't occur in alterCheliax.  Well, and Sevar, she supposes.  And obviously Asmodia.)

"Actually, that sounds like a good thing to me, if we can just apply enhancements as needed to stay in sync, instead of relying on Civilization having matched everyone here for expected learning speed on this exact topic.  Noted about the effect that has on testing."

"Asmodia, when you're asking somebody else to describe their solution before you describe yours, or in general to give their own opinion before you tell them yours, the usual rule is that tier-2s speak before tier-1s and tier-1s speak before tier-0.  I am not actually used to being a tier-0 anything, and people may need to spend a week calling me out on my errors there."

All right then.  Terrifically anti-Asmodean, but obvious in its intended purpose; superior intellects can't properly test inferior ones and show them their place if they go around telling their inferiors the true answers.

"I kind of want to get to the profound parts, especially if everyone already got the nonprofound parts," Asmodia says, what with those parts being the ones that are properly impressive in terms of how much further she got than everyone else.  "Let's just run through quickly to check nonprofound parts of the first five.  Except for #2, surprising claims require surprising evidence, which doesn't even really have a nonprofound part -"

"It would have a simple-math part, if I hadn't already shown you that simple-math part by calculating ratios between probabilities-before-evidence, let's call them 'prior probabilities' too long 'priors' for short in Taldane, and ratios between probabilities of observations.  If I were making you figure out the whole Law of Probability for yourself, the way you should properly be doing with kids when they grow up, #2 would have been a harder problem than #1 and you probably would have gotten it only a few days later."