Hell is truth seen too late.
- Thomas Hobbes
Well, if this is one of those Carissa-errors that actually can be solved by hurting her then that'd be good news since so many of them apparently can't and if it can't then it's going to boil down to 'it's allowed if you genuinely succeed at serving Asmodeus with all this nonsense and otherwise not' which is the place Carissa has been for a long time.
And she has tomorrow off! There's that!
She writes a note for the next dispatch to the Most High that Olegario has if it does not offend Church, Queen and Hell offered Carissa his allegiance, and she accepted if those conditions obtain, and then went to check if the conditions in fact obtained, and now repents of her error in not asking first whether, in fact, the Church is so offended, which she is given to understand is a matter for the Most High.
"Blergh?" says Asmodia, who is not a morning person. You might think that this wouldn't be a problem, since it is not, in fact, morning, but these two negations utterly fail to cancel.
...there's an unfamiliar person wearing spiky armor in her bedroom, holding a black candle in one hand that burns with a blood-red flame.
Right, well, it's not like her life has been normal for a while. "I think I'd like to hear an authorization code sometime about now," says Asmodia, because that's what Security would like her to say.
"I don't particularly have one. Security won't hear us while this candle burns. Promise." The words are accompanied by a charming, conspiratorial smile that's backed by enough Splendour that a sorcerer could burn down a city with it.
Uh huh.
Asmodia gets out of her bed, wearing the same student uniform that you might as well call your pajamas as an Ostenso wizard student. She goes on past the spiky woman to test the door to her bedroom, finds it locked.
She tries to snuff the candle with a Mage Hand. There's no counterspell visible to her Arcane Sight, but the candle goes on burning.
Asmodia goes to sit on her bed, illuminates her room with a simple cantrip, and raises her eyebrows at her visitor.
"Anyone can be bought for the right price. You might have some trouble finding mine."
Actually, that's sort of alterCheliax Asmodia, not real Asmodia... well, she's not as sure what realAsmodia says anyways, that would require actual thinking and it's way too early in the morning.
"How about a long life of luxury somewhere far from Cheliax, followed by a Plane Shift to Abaddon at the end of your life, to leave some overeager devil appropriately bereft?"
Asmodia's thoughts show that, first of all, she's pretty sure this is a test, second, that's not even much better than the offer she already got from the Most High, and third -
Asmodia's thoughts abruptly cut out.
Now that is truly interesting, not that Asmodia was being particularly boring in the first place.
"Teaching the Law you've learned, somewhere far from Cheliax, to patrons who reward with more than a simple surcease of punishment," the mysterious visitor ventures.
"Thank you blatant loyalty test. I'd like to get back to sleep now so I can prepare spells tomorrow, and oh, by the way, do my important job for Cheliax. Did somebody miss the part where I just said under Keltham's truthspell that I want the Project to be able to continue doing what it's doing?"
"I suppose I can't blame you for thinking this a test. Well, consider yourself to be tested on your answer to this - why wouldn't you take the offer, if it was real?"
In case someone, somewhere, cares about me more than that.
"You didn't significantly outbid Aspexia Rugatonn, I'm having more fun than I've ever had in my life doing what I'm currently doing, I would actually like to see the Project continue its work, and my trying to go anywhere Keltham can't flirt with me is prohibited by factors I have no reason to think you're cleared to know about. May I go back to sleep now?"
"One last question. How is it possible that you are concealing some of your thoughts from me?"
It simply shouldn't be possible to mentally enforce a suppression so complete, not against eighth-circle sorcery.
Oh fuck it. She'd gotten so far without - did she screw up, somehow, think too many opaqued thoughts...
"Project Lawful bullshit that you are not cleared to know about," Asmodia tries, just to see if that works.
Asmodia gets Gorthoklek's authorization, hands it over. "Okay. Hell's bullshit you're not cleared to know about. And I really hope for your sake that you were telling the truth about no other Security listening, because if you were lying about that, we're going to have to call them in to get the same orders, now that you went and said all that out loud."
"Otherwise get out of my bedroom, admit to your superior that you failed at running a convincing loyalty test and take whatever punishment goes with that, and don't mention anything about my opaque thoughts in your report. Understood?"
She's feeling genuinely torn here between bowing her head submissively and saying "Understood", to see where this goes if it's allowed to keep running, and backhanding the child into Hell, to be entertained there for a few hours before being Raised.
"Understood?" Asmodia repeats in a slightly sharper voice, as she takes the authorization out of the obvious loyalty-tester's hands.
"Understood," says Abrogail Thrune II, reigning Queen of Cheliax, and bows her head submissively.
She hasn't actually had a chance to consider the implications of Gorthoklek's authorization, which is not particularly written in such fashion as to exclude Abrogail Thrune from the scope of Hell's command. Abrogail would as soon not do anything with Asmodia she can't undo, before she's had that chance to think, and this pathway does least.
Besides. It potentially sets up an interesting reveal later.