"Sevar."

"It's a thing I want and can't possibly ever find in Axis. And I want it quite a lot. But it does seem to me like a terrible plan if I get out of hand in the future, and possible that I am rather than finding the wickedness and cruelty I'm supposed to be looking for mostly finding the high opinion of myself, and enjoyment of power, that aren't going to be sufficient for whatever I need to be cruel and wicked for. I could imagine myself getting eternally distracted from cruelty and wickedness by trying to do whatever seems most practical from where I presently stand, and since where I presently stand is as the heretic who is testing what happens when you don't punish people very much, I'd end up trapped in a - set of results that you can reach from that start while only doing things that accumulate resources, and which is worse than the place I'd land if I was doing something better. So I don't know, which is why I have referred the question to my betters. 

If there were any doubt in my heart that my loyalty to you will survive any power at all I might attain," she adds to Abrogail, "then I wouldn't do it. Because that seems like a great way to set myself on a course where I betray you eventually, or look tempted to, or even just look infuriatingly like I think I could get away with it. But there's no doubt in my heart, there, and you can look as long as you'd like."

Keeping it professional. Mostly. That was professionally necessary!

"Sometime later, dear, the way in which your thoughts change when I read them is not something you should be juggling right now."

"My own impulse would be to prohibit all such shifts of allegiances until we are sure there are any new places in Hell to be had, and that all offers of such are aligned to the purposes of Church and Crown, perhaps required to be approved by them.  I see possibilities of explosive disappointment here, and Olegario's unilateral decision that these places are to be offered at the whim of individual ilani to their vassals is one I do not recall approving."

"Aspexia, your decision?  I yield it fully to you."

This is very very obviously a matter that impinges on Asmodeus's own fun.

"Realistically, the most important consideration here is Sevar herself.  If Subirachs thinks that Sevar having her own fiefdom is likely to produce good effects on her spiritual development, all else must yield to that, provided we think that we can in fact restrict that information sufficiently tightly that it does not affect the rest of Cheliax.  Abrogail?"

"Maillol, fail your Will save against my Detect Thoughts and then think about whether it can in fact be done, given conditions on the Project."

"I see."

"You will have those authorities, then."

"Do not fail Cheliax in this, Maillol."

"Sevar.  The Most High has spoken upon this matter of faith."

Is that a yes? Those phrases were more consistent with a yes than a no but also Abrogail likes playing games. 

"And now we speak of politics, your majesty?"

"No, dear, I mean that the Most High has spoken upon this matter, which I concede to be a matter foremost of faith; she referred back to me a political part and I ordained it so."

"This place is now your fiefdom, and if some believe that you have power over Hell's punishment also, well, we shall see what comes of that.  Who knows, perhaps they are right."

And if not, that's on them for assuming it was so.

She does not squeal in delight, though probably to Abrogail she might as well have. She nods. 

"My other question, Most High, is whether, while you're here, you have correction for me." Since they're not supposed to be proactive. 

"Yes, but not all here need be present for it.  Subirachs, perhaps, but not the others.  I shall tarry after, for that."

"If we have no other business among all of ourselves...?"

"Well then.  Security, escort them in for morning tea."

The other girls come in. And kneel, obviously, because that's the Queen. ....and the Grand High Priestess. At a breakfast table with Carissa, who looks noticeably cheerful. 

Lord Nethys, Ione thinks, trying not to shudder visibly where she kneels, please have foreseen this, and planned for it, that I may continue to serve you unbroken; or if instead nearly all my purpose has been served, make sure my end teaches a lesson to those who think it easy to evade your all-foreseeing sight and your retributive explosions.

Quick, think uncensored thoughts.  Nice crown, there.  What does it take to get Hell to make you another one of those?  How much progress could she make on Law, if the next time the Queen needs to sleep -

She needs more practice at frantically thinking uncensored thoughts that won't instead get her killed.

"Rise."

"Seat yourselves."

"Have some tea."

"I am a gentle and benevolent Queen and you are awed by me, not terrified.  Aspexia here is stern, but kind, and as Asmodeus's most trusted agent is certainly not dangerous to any law-abiding citizen of Cheliax.  That is to be your demeanor; but discuss matters at this table of the true Cheliax, not the alter."

Tonia tries quite hard to stand up and go to the table to join them for tea but her legs seem to have turned to stone. This is probably not because the Queen petrified her, though the Queen does do that. 

Is this a test. (Yes, everything is a test.)

What is it testing.

Their - suicidality?

Eventually she manages to make her legs move by leaning forward far enough they have to move to catch her, and once she's taken the first step it's easier to take the next one. She is trembling.

Carissa sips tea. Because this is fun.

There's seven empty chairs about the table, so exactly as many as remaining Project Lawful members.  Sevar, Maillol, and Subirachs are all seated next to each other in a cluster, the Queen and Aspexia Rugatonn each have two empty chairs apiece to either side of them.  It leaves exactly one seat for a Project Lawful member to sit where she won't have anyone dangerous to either side of herself.

There's a cold terror in her, if the Queen is running Detect Thoughts then she is not getting out of here without showing Gorthoklek's authorization to the Queen of Cheliax and that is something difficult to visualize going at all well.

At the same time, Asmodia is currently rocking serious Wisdom and has spent much time visualizing alterAsmodia in her head.  AlterAsmodia is awed but opportunistic, not frozen, not terrified.

And if this is a test of anything, or a lesson in anything, that thing is to stop fucking freezing up while scared the way half of Project Lawful does every time Keltham says something that implies the Project might fail sometime in the next minute.

RealAsmodia is frozen and trying not to think dangerous thoughts, and in her own absence she makes the decision to let alterAsmodia talk.

"Pilar, Ione, I think you probably have the most interesting things to talk about with the Most High so you two get to sit next to her.  Meritxell, Queen's right, myself, Queen's left.  Tonia, you're privileged to sit next to Sevar. Gregoria, by Subirachs.  Peranza, between Gregoria and myself."

AlterAsmodia is suicidal, apparently.

...No.  There were not, in fact, better options, considering that it's not a good look for the whole Project if everyone tries to avoid sitting next to the Queen and scrambles for the one seat that would have other girls to either side.

If the Project looks weak, Sevar's heretical low-punishment regimen looks ineffective.

Meritxell shoots Asmodia what is getting to be a characteristic look that says she can mostly follow along with what Asmodia is doing but absolutely wouldn't have thought of it herself, and she hates that passionately, and then she sits at the right hand of the Queen of Cheliax. "Is anyone tracking whether the sun will change our complexions and whether Keltham will notice?" she says, as she does, because Asmodia shouldn't be the only person who can say things. 

"It's a reason not to skip more than a day at a time, but a concern that goes both ways, right, I also don't know that you all who spent more time outside before the project will be getting paler at the right pace if you hide indoors on rest days. Considerations like these are among the reasons we decided not to tell Keltham that powerful memory magic exists, even though we're not using it and the Conspiracy he hypothesizes would be; he might start looking for memory magic in places like our complexions and find other things we're not telling him."

"Once we're on a more stable footing and done taking skip days," says Gregoria -

"It has occurred to me that maybe then we manufacture occasion for Keltham to learn of the spell Scribe's Binding, or something, at which point he hopefully stops evaluating everything as Conspiracy and we stop doing any kind of absurd lengths, but planning more than three days ahead seems unwise, so far."

Walk into the potential explosion and see what happens, that should be the way of Nethys, right?

Without really having any memory of how she got there, Ione is sitting to the left of the Grand High Priestess of Asmodeus in Golarion, Aspexia Rugatonn, there is a cute little plate in front of her bearing some expensively intricate snack several steps up from what Project Lawful gets from Cayden Cailean or at least that they've earned from Him so far.

She isn't talking yet.  Pilar can totally talk, right, Ione doesn't need to talk.

"So, how is life after betraying our Lord working out for you?" the Most High says, in the voice of someone's kindly grandmother.

People who are never cruel don't get spells granted of Asmodeus.

"So, Asmodia.  What would you say is the current greatest weak point of Project Lawful?"

"That Keltham is checking the consistency of everything we tell him using Laws we don't understand, both in terms of the Laws that govern the way he expects the world around him must be arranged, and in terms of Laws he is using to think."

She is mostly, numbly, letting alterAsmodia's personality talk, and hoping that if anything really suicidal comes up realAsmodia will realize in time what she is about to say.