If she insists.

And suddenly there's nobody in her bedroom, without any magical phenomena or illusions having been particularly visible to her Arcane Sight.

A slight prickle of unease pokes at Asmodia, then.  There are people in Cheliax who can do that, but not a lot of them... she thinks.  Who knows what Security actually gets up to, or what you can do with items... the whole thing seems kind of weird, suddenly, in light of that weird ending.

"Was that a trope?" Asmodia says out loud in her bedroom, and goes outside to briefly report an appropriately censored version of the encounter to Security.

Security refuses to confirm or deny that a loyalty test occurred, but isn't particularly reacting as if to an unexpected invader.

Huh.  Well, whatever.

Asmodia gets back to sleep.

PL-timestamp:  Day 9 (7) / Morning

A long oval table has been set up on a rampart of the fortress, overlooking the ocean in one direction, in another direction lit by the morning sun.  At present, only five people are sitting here, all of whom have been spending too much time indoors of late.  Tea is available, and light snacks of the highest quality, but they are mostly being ignored.

The time indoors is not really wearing on her; there's only sunlight six months of the year, at the Worldwound border that Cheliax holds. 

But everything else is kind of wearing on her, such as having to act like she belongs in present company. Not that she's doing a bad job of concealing that she's still scared of them all, but she bets they all (except possibly Maillol) can tell.

"Most High," she says, "I had a question for you." Two, actually, but this one makes her look good so she wants to ask it first.

"I make no promises about whether I have an answer, under our circumstances.  But ask."

"Keltham spoke to us of how, in dath ilan, a group of non-conspirators credibly accused of being in a conspiracy would try to pick the set of actions that would most disadvantage the conspiracy, as an act of cooperation with Civilization in the worlds in which there was a conspiracy in truth, and for the same reason, a person accused of a murder wrongfully would give the police great detail on their potential motives and reasons to commit it. 

It occurred to me last night that -"

" - so I, and I think many other people, are in a state of uncertainty about whether I am in fact Chosen by Asmodeus for a work that will require, or at least that has allowance for, the errors and heresies I've fallen into in the course of pursuing it, or whether I am like Pilar and Ione the product of the intervention of some other power, presumably acting with Asmodeus's agreement but not necessarily in His interests. I imagine you have a guess, but I'm not asking for it; I know what I'm meant to know, and it's obvious why I wouldn't be meant to know more.

But I understand, then, that a dath ilani in my position would try to - cooperate with the Church across the worlds in which she is acting in Asmodeus's interests and the worlds in which she is, against her own will, acting against them, and can't be told so. By doing things which make me easy to countermand or undermine in those worlds where I need countermanding or undermining, or by - closing routes that I'd only need if I later desired to betray us. 

I see why this wouldn't have been pointed out to me, lest it raise to my attention in the first place that I don't know whether Asmodeus chose me or not. But now that I reasoned through it, is there by any chance a standard list of things I can do."

"I suppose that decisively answers the question of whether exposing people to Keltham can turn them into Aspexia Rugatonn, because that is the most Aspexia Rugatonn thing that has ever been said by anyone who is not Aspexia Rugatonn."

(She's still keeping it professional and still won't be looking at Carissa's thoughts.)

"Alas, your Infernal Majestrix, it is easier to sound like me than to be me."

"Sevar.  When your thoughts become that complicated, it is time to simplify them if at all possible.  You are no true dath ilani as yet."

"The first fundamental principle, in any case where Asmodeus's orders have been given, is to follow Asmodeus's orders.  I'm not sure you appreciate the gift you are given in having orders you can follow.  I must usually operate without them, myself."

"Whatever the unclarity of His vision of the mortal realm, Asmodeus does balance across worlds like those you describe without the slightest difficulty.  Perhaps, indeed, the orders to let you travel beyond Cheliax without selling your soul are to the advantage of some other god hoping to receive you from us.  Or perhaps they are intended to let you wait on a higher soul-price, and yet follow Keltham in some circumstance where you should and must, to Asmodeus's advantage."

"Suppose we can be confident that the first case was always the one that held, that it is only to some other god's advantage that you have freedom of travel.  Even if we are certain of this we must not disobey our orders, not push them around the edges to what we think is our Lord's advantage, because the effect of that is simply to require our Lord to work harder to instruct us when some other god pays Him to grant someone freedom of travel."

"Our Lord has gone to great lengths to make the Asmodean system one of obedience once orders have been given.  It is in His nature as a god, and when we try to make Him work through means whose nature is contrary to giving orders to be obeyed, making Him take into account our possible disobedience or edge-flirtation, we are going against His nature and costing Him yet more."

"How do we balance our choices across the worlds that might be, the reasons our Lord might have, His possible interests, His likely goals?  If we have orders, the answer is, by just obeying Him."

"What is it that you think not covered by our orders, of which you'd ask such complicated questions?"

"Accepting the allegiance of those who call me Chosen of Asmodeus, and desire to be among the vassals of my kingdom in Hell. ...and buying their souls in secret so the fact of my interest doesn't drive the price through the roof."

"I'd say that possibilities like these are exactly why I visited you in your bedroom to check your loyalties, that morning.  But in fact, this is so vastly worse than any possibility I'd actually envisioned.  You are very lucky to have the quality of being visibly and clearly loyal to me personally."

"It is not apparent to me that we need especially complicated reasoning to handle this issue.  Why not just say among ourselves that we are uncertain about whether you are Chosen only of Asmodeus or Chosen of some other or Chosen perhaps of both, and then proceed in the face of that uncertainty?  We know of Hell that our Lord is eager to have you, that your price there is somewhere beyond vast, He has instructed you to serve him well in this world and come to Him in Hell to be treasured by Him.  It is not a negligible imprimatur, whether the original spur for it was Asmodeus or an old pact or new bargain."

"What you are looking for, I think, is some assurance that your theology is correct, that your plans for Hell are correct, and this is a kind of assurance that is problematic to get into a habit of seeking, even if you are Chosen of Asmodeus and no other.  What if you are roughly on the right track, but destined to arrive at better theology and better plans in eighty-one days instead of nine?"

"And if you are not originally Chosen of Asmodeus and no other?  Then He nonetheless instructed you to serve Him well in this world and be raised high in it, and indicated that you were a soul who might be exceptionally treasured by Him in Hell, and Hell's vast price on you is justified to us as centering around your ability to produce better devils, though we are told that of other matters it is forbidden to speak.  We can scarcely assume your ideas wrong, even if we somehow know for certain that you were singled out by some other god."

"So we must proceed regardless with care for the case where your plans make sense, and care for the case where they do not.  You are loyal to us either way, for in either case you are the Carissa Sevar that stands before me and whose thoughts lie open to my examination.  You do not need to play games against a version of yourself opposed to us whose mind I cannot read.  You are simply yourself planning across two possibilities, and we can simplify away all the complications of which Keltham spoke in his own case, where possible people he is dealing with have intentions and wills explicitly opposed to their other possible selves."

"It is all too easy to introduce complications that sound like Aspexia Rugatonn.  The true qualification for being her is being able to simplify away those complications that were not needed, and introduce those that were missing."

"Yes, Most High."

Probably she'd still be loyal if she knew some other god had chosen her. She hates Nethys and doesn't think much of Cayden Cailean. Most people apparently aren't loyal when they have options, but. Probably she'd still be loyal even if she knew for sure, and doesn't need to play against a traitor she would never be.

Aspexia notes the rather visible absence of Abadar and Irori from Sevar's consideration, after she was told to stay out of Axis and not to think herself Irori, and has fallen in love with Abadar's cleric.  Aspexia hesitates, though, to inquire further of Sevar upon those Two, right at this moment.  Sevar is making progress herself, in some directions, even as she becomes more worrying within others.

Neither does she remind Sevar that she was offered support in descending into cruelty, wickedness, and the darkness of her own soul, on which Sevar has not made much visible progress recently; they were instructed not to be proactive about that... a worrying sign, however.

"What does all that amount to in practice, though, as policy?  I know what my first thought would be, but Keltham seems to think that I should not speak mine until others have spoken theirs.  I see some amusing possibilities in the practice, maybe even useful ones.  Maillol?"

Fuck Keltham.  Seriously.  "No.  It's a huge disaster and explosion waiting to happen, and strikes at the heart of the Chelish state itself.  Tell Olegario no, put the whole concept under real actual no-rumors classification."

"Subirachs?"

"Abrogail."

"I stand by my ordering.  Subirachs?"

"Allow absolutely no word of this to pass beyond the fortress walls, but within it, let the Chosen do as she wills.  She needs the practice."