"We are honored to have had you join us, your Majesty," Carissa says once those directed to depart have done so.

"You certainly are."

"Carissa, dear.  How is my work on you holding up, as seen by you from within?  Any stumbles in its annealing?  I am not presently reading your thoughts, so you must speak what you know."

"I think I still don't fully understand the shape you desire for me, because I was confused when Keltham wanted the same thing. Confused, but able to give it to him. I notice myself being more ambitious - noticing that my plans require something hard to get, and thinking of solutions like 'well I guess maybe I'll have to become an archdevil, all right, which one's seat would be easiest to play for - I'm not sure if that's an intended effect or an unintended one. I'm not feeling scared of being hurt like I was immediately afterwards and am instead back to wishing I could just suffer until I stopped having problems but unreasonably they'll still be there if I suffer about them a lot. I think I have uncovered more desires, but - not uncovered the ones that'd close any path but Hell to me. Not yet. I promise I'm looking for them. .....uh, there is 'if I don't go to Hell then it will continue being unsatisfactory, so I will be sure to' but I think that's heretical and does not count as a desire that Axis can't fulfill, even if technically Axis can't fulfill it."

"The latter part of that is the Most High's place to speak of to you."

"Though on my imperfect understanding of the Outer Planes, my gift to you - and I am pleased that you know it for such - is not a gift that would have been given to you in Axis, had you died and found yourself there."

"I know. There aren't people like you in Axis, and if there were no one would let them do anything interesting." The part of Carissa that has gotten very stubborn about all goals being only minor inconveniences volunteers that probably Carissa could have just thought about her priorities until she improved in the same way; she does not share that stupid opinion which is probably not even true. "I am ready already to unhesitatingly choose a Hell that would treat me like you do, even knowing I may never again merit such a gift. And I think Keltham would accept that Hell, but my job is convincing him to accept the real Hell, so I have to track the differences. I think Hell mostly isn't, for people, what you've been for me. Maybe it could be. Once I'm an archdevil."

"The treatment that Keltham improvised for you, yesterday, has an aspect I find truly fascinating.  It is not quite what I would have done, but - the part that your transcript showed your thoughts stumbling on, Keltham's instructions to you not to punish yourself, that you thought so much unlike Hell, is strangely like what I would have done."

"To be precise, I would have told you that I was going to read your thoughts and punish you as I deemed appropriate, and you were neither required nor allowed to usurp my place and punish yourself.  It is, in fact, an appropriate instruction when the problem you are trying to solve is a tangle of somebody's thoughts getting in the way of themselves, and your method is cutting the tangle with pain applied from without."

"Keltham seemingly arrived at nearly the same answer, and with far less experience than it took me to reach it.  The question that fascinates me is whether this indicates that the way in which Keltham tortured you is Lawful in some way I cannot see."

Abrogail's phrasing does not seem nearly as concerningly un-Hellish, of course. She thinks on the puzzle for half a minute. "I think Keltham has an instinctive understanding of - some rules that dath ilan went out of its way not to teach him, but which still might form part of the Law. Like that one, maybe, and like - that it was his task to succeed or fail at, and I was just present for it. But I don't have the math, and I'm not sure even he does. I'll think more on it."

"Do so.  I admit, I have less hopes for your plans of Hell, than do you.  But if there truly is some defect of Lawfulness in how the current devils are treating new petitioners -"

"It seems too absurd to speak out loud.  But there remains your price in Dis."

"Indeed. 

Any sane person would have less hopes for my plans of Hell than I do. Knowing that, a proper dath ilani would of course believe what they think a sane person ought to believe; but I'm not one, yet, and I'm going to try to find the flaw that might not be there; it is as important as arranging our ultimate triumph, and might be related to it. And there are already lots of people at work on other clearer bits of Our Lord's will. ....I hope. Now you're going to tell me that there are actually only six reasonable competent people in the whole country."

"It depends on what task you want to assign them.  We probably have six reasonable competent tailors in Egorian alone."

"People in the tier you're challenging now?  People who could be assigned to head up something as strange as Project Lawful has become?  Sometime when we're not at war with Nidal, I'll invite you to dinner with all of the proven souls like that in all of Cheliax.  It won't be a large dinner."

"Pilar.  Will it suit you if I address your oracle's curse as snack service, or would you rather it receive some other name?"

Pilar halts her initial impulse to agree with anything the Most High wants to do.  She wouldn't be asking if she didn't want Pilar's opinion.

"It was Ione's term, but considering how offended I felt when I thought she was calling me that, I find myself pleased by the thought of my curse being called the same."

"Mm.  Snack service, I address you now.  A disturbing thought has occurred to me, that if Golarion must needs have its own Keepers to survive, you might claim to be serving Asmodeus's interests on the whole, if you convinced Keltham to permit those, while along the way giving Keltham far more information than Asmodeus would have wished."

Pilar can feel the sinking all the way down to her stomach.  Even if it was Sevar's call, if it turns out it was like that, then maybe it's - Pilar's own fault - for not thinking more about her curse, asking smarter questions earlier -

Asmodeans sure are suspicious!  Is that how a nice Chaotic Good curse would treat a host who's been so accommodating to her?

"Answer the question, snack service."

Aspexia Rugatonn didn't actually ask a question, nor is she, in fact, a being whose words command immediate and unquestioning obedience from Chaotic Good oracle curses.

Pilar's curse enjoys being nice, though, so if Aspexia Rugatonn asks politely, she'll definitely get a polite answer back.

"Oh, is that what niceness is, now.  You expect me not to recognize sadism when I see it?"

Pilar's curse especially enjoys being nice to Lawful Evil and setting up conditions where Lawful Evil has to be nice, yes.  Chaotic Good does know the concept of sadism, but it's not quite your kind of sadism and the difference is important.

Aspexia Rugatonn has pride, yes, in much the same way she has the Crown of the Most High; it's indeed a part of herself, but not in a way where she can't remove it as soon as there's something to be gained for Asmodeus thereby.

"Very well then.  Please, if you'd be so kind, tell me whether in having Pilar castigate Keltham, you gave to Asmodeus with one hand, and took with another."

The answer is... nope!  The suspicious Asmodeans are completely wrong!  Telling Keltham significantly more or significantly less than Pilar did would have served Asmodeus less well, even if Keltham had come to the same decision about Keepers either way.

Having Pilar speak out passionately to Keltham like that, about something she really cared about, and having her passion turn out to hurt Asmodeus in the end, would be something that Pilar's curse would never ever do to Pilar!

"And would you then, also, please speak to my suspicion that Cayden is with his left hand setting in motion injuries to Lord Asmodeus which will produce subsidiary disasters, and with his right hand using Pilar to cancel those out and perhaps also do Asmodeus's interests some lesser injuries along the way, such that she may be truthfully told that Asmodeus will be better off than if she were never oracled?"

Pilar's flinch is barely perceptible, to anyone not Chelish; to Aspexia's Sense Motive, it looks like screaming.

Also totally wrong!  For that to be true would definitely count as Pilar being used against her Lord, since Cayden Cailean would not set those disasters in motion, if Pilar wasn't there to stop them.

It wouldn't be playing nice with Broom's god either, to set a disaster in motion, and then invoke the importance of Broom's god to stop that disaster while also doing something else you wanted.  Other gods would be unhappy with Cayden Cailean about that; Cayden Cailean couldn't get away with that sort of thing the way Asmodeus can.

Aspexia Rugatonn's clever suspicion was in fact a pretty silly one!  Any god would've seen that right away.  Aspexia Rugatonn should remember that she isn't actually very good at this kind of reasoning, just better than all the mortals around her except Keltham.

"...would you perhaps care to answer, please, so long as I'm asking politely, whether it's the case that everything you've done so far has in truth had no purpose but that which seemed overt to myself."  If the curse claims this, Aspexia will mostly conclude it's just lying.