"I'll ask Subirachs.  It's stupid for me to be talking about this with you of all people, that's just being cruel to myself."

"And Subirachs is going to say something about - I shouldn't say it out loud.  Not if I'm actually going to try to test the Conspiracy on this, even though, even though why would the Conspiracy be doing that if the plan isn't just to hurt me as much as possible.  Don't answer that either, if I'm going to play that game with anybody I'll ask Asmodia."

...some part of his brain does seem to be convinced that letting himself fall in love with Carissa, as much as that looked like the courageous act of living your own best life and not backing away from that out of simple fear, on the surface appearances of things, was actually a huge mistake.

Keltham floats the internal argument that, if so, he has in fact already now made that mistake and might as well go all in on it, and that what comes of it will come.

...it lands a little, maybe.

"If I could make safe Wishes," Keltham whispers, "ones that should not work even in a world of magic, I'd Wish that all the Kelthams across all the worlds could ask one true question to their Carissa of the Conspiracy, no matter how rare she is among their worlds, to ask her if somehow even she loves him, or maybe just, if she's okay despite having to play the role of being tortured -"

"I don't know why I'm thinking that.  She'd just be like 'no obviously', and how would that help."

"I might not be imagining the same Conspiracy as you and I don't have the slightest idea what I could say that would - capture the Carissae in the conspiracy that you're imagining, meaningfully -

- like, I can swear to it, I'm tempted to, but I'd be scared that - Carissa in the Conspiracy just - condemns herself to Abaddon and burns the Law and becomes someone who can never serve at the Worldwound and who can't sustain a world that fights the Worldwound at all - because I don't understand what Carissa in the Conspiracy wants so I'm not sure it makes sense to say she wouldn't do that -"

"Don't swear to it, that reasoning is correct.  Maybe I just want to hear her say no, so that those Kelthams can apologize to her, and go back to their more probable Carissas.  Why am I thinking so much about her, she's not you."

"You don't have to solve this problem.  Basic Security reasoning says you can't, I have to, and the way it gets solved is that I orient to Golarion and play the game against people who aren't you and rule out at least the Conspiracies that are weak enough that they can't just synthesize real masochists, rule out the Conspiracies that have to improvise after I run into Carissa at the Worldwound and whose scans didn't detect me the instant I showed up in Golarion, because those weaker Conspiracies, I could catch, and if they're enough smarter than I am then I'll never know, but also you won't be hurting, because that's not what's efficient if they have the power to eliminate that risk of being caught, you'll just be an actual masochist they made for me, or maybe not exist at all except as a more complicated illusion, and if so I'll never find out, and I'll know that, and someday I'll go to a Lawful being who doesn't answer to Asmodeus and say that I'm looking to buy a consensual permanent version of a Suggestion to not have to think about that possibility anymore unless I deliberately decide to, and then I'll be done and able to live inside Golarion as it appears to be."

" - that doesn't sound like a satisfactorily good ending. I want a better one."

"I genuinely don't see how you get a better ending than that even as a god.  There could always be a bigger god that's fooling you."

"And we have now lain in bed long enough for the conversation to turn incredibly depressing, which is silly, and next time, we should get out of bed while we're still ahead of ourselves on points."

"You become the biggest god." But she gets out of bed. 

He follows.

"There isn't a biggest god any more than there's a biggest number.  I mean, as a large enough god, much bigger than Asmodeus by the sound of it, maybe you can calculate where you mostly are inside Reality directly, but there could still be a larger god containing you and messing with your calculations and then that's the possibility you'd rewrite yourself to not bother thinking about anymore."

"I suppose there could be some clever solution I'm not seeing due to not actually being even a small god."

Declaring that you need to become a better god is sometimes worth an extra cleric level from Irori, if He has that sort of relationship with someone, but He and Carissa Sevar currently don't.

Meanwhile, the Project Lawful researchers have decided that Pilar is usually a pretty nice person so long as you don't punch her in the faith, but can be provoked.  Asmodia sends Pilar to ask Maillol for tips on how that sort of thing works with the worshippers of other gods, which Maillol can in fact provide her; though Maillol also informs Asmodia afterwards that he, Maillol, is not particularly tolerant of attempts to duck out potential punishments by sending your subordinate to annoy somebody instead of doing that yourself.

The Conspirators work some on figuring out who they are in alter-Cheliax, and spend some time reading in the library because that's probably what non-Asmodeans do??  If Keltham asks they were mostly reading in the library or getting in some magical practice.

Keltham and Carissa arrive rather late to lunch, but there's sufficient food left to feed them.

Afterwards Keltham announces that he needs to think over the whole Keeper thing in the back of his mind; and also in fact, he does have work to be done at some point which isn't lessons: namely, writing up an interim contract between the Project and Cheliax, and of course writing up a contract for the Project itself.  He's sorry for not thinking ahead to this part earlier, but yeah, everybody go take the rest of the day off, or catch up on things.  He'll figure out by tomorrow what to do about the Keeper business.

And Keltham writes up the contracts, or rather, sketches what should be in them; there's no point in going formal or handing it to somebody like Lrilatha before having negotiated the pieces.  He does successfully remember to actually use the Lesser Restoration on himself when he starts feeling tired.  When he's done, he writes up a summary of the key points and ideas, and hands it in to Maillol to hopefully make its way to some appropriate person in Governance.

Flirting occurs at dinnertime, but of the girls no longer employed by Project Lawful, only Yaisa attempts to flirt with Keltham.  He doesn't take anybody to the cuddleroom; that part of him feels a little tired, but only in a temporary way.

Keltham takes time for wizard practice as well, and successfully hangs an Auditory Hallucination.  It only targets one person per level, alas, unlike Silent Image, so he uses it to play some of Civilization's professional-level music for Carissa, pieces Keltham has listened to often enough to remember in due order.

And then Keltham goes to sleep, and shortly before dawn becomes a statue.

PL-timestamp:  Day 8-9 (7) / Late Night

"What actually am I missing about the allocation of Pilars and the allocation of people suitable for them, do they mostly end up snatched up by people who aren't very suitable, or are a lot of nobles suitable..." Carissa asks Subirachs during her debrief once Keltham's gone to sleep. Her Ring of Sustenance has kicked in, and she feels more rested just in the anticipation of the extra six hours, even before she's had them. 

"I remind you - gently, because it is in one way a good sign that you are making this mistake, though a potentially fatal mistake if untreated - that the real Pilar does not have an obligate rape fetish."

"The alter-Pilars of the real Cheliax, if that phrase makes sense, are a great deal less in want than I imagine they should be in alter-Cheliax.  In the true Cheliax, most people who can afford to keep an alter-Pilar can choose from any number of prey without a rape fetish, and most of those with power and wealth in Cheliax would find that the more satisfying alternative.  I apologize; it should have been my place as well as yours to realize that in alter-Cheliax they would be in greater demand than here, before Keltham asked after it."

" - right. 

I think I don't know enough about real Cheliax to be good at thinking where I'll need to lie. 

Before Keltham....I rather intended to run my magic shop and never leave it and not come to anyone powerful's attention, in significant part because they might rape me though also because they might murder me, and I'm not sure if that was a fault of mine, or - a cost Cheliax is paying because it's cheaper than other ways of getting tyranny, or - if someone would've at some point corrected me in that - but it seems wasteful."

"I might previously have had a different answer, but I now think we're not actually very Lawful compared to how Evil we are."

"If we are talking about the typical magic-shop owner, then I think they in fact just wouldn't have any grand ambitions of serving Asmodeus that we should be encouraging.  Maybe missing a few Carissa Sevars into the mix is a problem we cannot avoid at our levels of Law.  It would be a more plausible argument if you didn't have a native Intelligence of 18 or the Spellcraft that you did..."

"I think we're failing to pick up on potential Inner Ring members who'd serve Asmodeus better as more than shopkeepers.  I don't have a good idea yet of how the new Cheliax could do better.  Except that there could be a dath ilani track for people with native intelligences of 18, and then, something about Keltham strikes me as not the type to hide in his magic shop and never come to anyone's attention, but I could not begin to guess which portion of Law that represents..."

"I think a lot of the real answer is that the real Cheliax is just not very organized by dath ilani standards.  We aren't sweeping peasant villages for alter-Pilars and training the most attractive and Intelligent ones for sale to the highest bidders that might make a more Asmodean use of them, because we simply aren't rich enough to afford infrastructure like that."

"Keltham has a bizarre attitude towards being deterred from doing things which might or might not have an Evil dath ilani equivalent and which actually seems important to figure out, I worry it's close to the fragment of Law where he wouldn't just be a shopkeeper."

"If it's Law, you're going to have to figure it out, or maybe Asmodia.  The only way I can make headway on it myself is by imagining that dath ilan shaped Keltham from childhood not to become his Evil self, in ways hidden from him.  We may be doing the equivalent of wandering through a dungeon laid in his mind to prevent his escape, and wondering why there are so many traps lying around, where did they come from, who would put a spike pit there."

"Rings - partially true. He said a bunch of things about how he only cares what Civilization would think of him in the sense that Civilization is sensible but - I think it's why the possibility that we're specifically trying to get him to do things his civilization would abhor looms so large. I think dath ilan would be incredibly hostile to anyone actually Evil and he admits it tried quite hard to make sure he never learned he likes hurting people during sex...the Law part is separate from that, though. If I were to take a stab at it I'd say that - if everyone will predictably not choose their course of action based on threats, then there's no point issuing them, so dath ilan worked incredibly hard to make everyone believe about themselves and about everyone else that they predictably won't choose their course of action based on threats. Which is just false of normal humans but maybe they managed to make it true enough about dath ilani."

Subirachs doesn't see where Sevar is going with this - Subirachs is not currently having Detect Thoughts run on Sevar, it doesn't seem important enough and Security burns a lot of those spells in Project Lawful - but maybe she's only meant to serve as a listening-pet to the Chosen of Asmodeus, at this point.

"If my bedroom partners were immune to threats, they would be less fun in many ways, but that would leave enough forms of fun left to still take them," Jacint ventures.  "Being immune to threats, if that could be done, is not the same as being able to avoid reacting to pain in interesting ways."

- nod. "And also it's only a threat in the relevant sense, I think, if it's costly to do and you're doing it anyway as followthrough on the commitment, made in the hope you wouldn't have to pay it - like, that we will flog thieves, that's a threat, because no one wants to expend all the resources tracking down and flogging the thieves, but if we didn't then there'd be lots of them.

If you say, I want to torture people to death, I just enjoy it, it's fun, but for reasons of maintaining a functioning organization I commit to restraining unless you betray me, at which point I'll do the thing I want to do -

- not a threat. I think. I should run this by Asmodia, but Keltham's built off it at a very deep level and it might be an edge Evil dath ilan has, that we can credibly promise punishment even to the kind of entity that doesn't respond to threats as long as we're doing it because we genuinely love and enjoy it."

"My mind's picture of Keltham's Civilization reacts by turning all our lands into fire and ash, if they can, or turning their own lands to fire and ash if they cannot.  But perhaps I attribute too much pride to them."

"The Most High would know for certain how gods would see it."

"I think you're right about dath ilan's Civilization, it has built itself into something that will destroy us or destroy itself on contact. It can't live alongside anyone whose values are sufficiently different."

"I hope that's not true of Keltham's Civilization. I don't want to lose him like that. I hope that even once it breaks he'll look at us and see something that he is willing to live in the same world as. But maybe he won't, and then we kill him."

And the only way she can protect him is by changing his mind. 

Or, if she's wrong to think that Cheliax would win, then the only way she can protect the whole world is by changing his mind. 

Well, fine, then, she'll do that.