"Oh. 

It didn't occur to me that that was something I could have. That it would ever not be my fault, if I wasn't good enough."

"Oh, it almost always is."

"But not when you are given an order and follow it correctly."

"Those such as Pilar can be too greedy about chasing that, even when it might better serve Asmodeus for them to use their own initiative.  I expect this was among the Most High's thoughts when she granted Pilar so much authority in the palace two days ago."

"But even after using her own initiative, and erring, it is possible for Pilar to be made clean.  Because we, her superiors, tell her that she erred, we tell her how much punishment she has incurred, and she undergoes that punishment, and implicitly we have told her she deserves no more punishment than that, and therefore it is true, and once punished she is finished.  You have done this for her; did you not understand what you were doing?"

"No, I did, but I thought that she needed - us to be genuinely competent enough to be actually correct, in the punishment we assigned - I felt resentful, about my punishment from the Queen, before I saw the codes and realized that she was just correct, and had identified real things - and I imagined Pilar to have that same failing, I guess -"

"It certainly helps if we are competent.  I am not confident of what might happen to Pilar's faith if she served a string of superiors far less intelligent and competent than herself, bumbling and failing in their service to our Lord, letting severe transgressions go by and punishing what she knew to be rightful.  This is among the reasons to exercise due care in commanding the slaves more valuable to our Lord; they are, in the end, His possessions and not ours, if they are things of noticeable value at all.  Though never forget, it is heresy to care whether they are happy, it matters only that they remain useful."

"But again.  Pilar's severest transgression by far was her appointing Paxti as Cheliax's most deadly Project Lawful girl, which she did out of fondness for another, at cost to Lord Asmodeus's interests, as an overt act and not a thought, with flawed intent and not just flawed execution.  You did not try to assign Pilar enough punishment for that to break her, remake her, and drive every trace of fondness for others out of her heart forever, so that Hell on her arrival would have nothing left to do.  You did not try to assign her a severe enough punishment to leave her in horror that the pain might ever return if she repeated that behavior.  You assigned her a punishment severe enough that her soul would know it had made a serious mistake.  That Pilar then knows this deep down is what does most of the work in correcting her, and improving her, somewhat, rather than all at once for the rest of her life in a single torture session."

"You are afraid of me doing something to you that you would never be foolish enough to try with Pilar, and I would say that you must consider me a very great incompetent, but I am well aware that it is actually just because you are stupid and unable to see past your own fears."

Carissa is one of the smartest people in Cheliax, and she knows it. - not the time. 

"Yes. I'm sorry, High Priestess."

"Intelligence 22 cannot prevent somebody from failing to see obvious things when her own mind is set against itself."

She is, in fact, having Sevar's thoughts read; why wouldn't she?

Of course. Carissa is both important and, now, at risk of being a traitor; she should assume they are going to great lengths to mindread her. She regrets obliging them to expend the effort.  "I know, High Priestess. I am very annoyed about it and it is one of the first things I want to learn how to fix in people."

She laughs, and it's genuine.  "Perhaps ask Keltham how far dath ilan itself has come there, before you set your eyes on that as your first goal rather than your last."

You'd be surprised at how far, actually, especially if you'd only ever met Keltham.

"I am not going to punish that stray thought just now, about your own cleverness.  It would disturb the Queen's work if I did.  The only reason I am not saying a similar thing about your thought of escape is that you know it was a transgression and you are, I think, beginning to become concerned not simply about the fearful fantasy of what must be done to drive it out of your mind forever, but about what you must do to feel right with your faith."

"Or perhaps not.  It is important not to rush that aspect of your spiritual growth.  But when, however, somebody can be corrected through torment by which they know what is made right or wrong, and not torment so fearful to them that they dare not do the like again, they are then less damaged by that correction."

"I will continue to observe your spiritual health and place the judgment of that disloyal thought in abeyance for now; the Queen's work is still solidifying into its new shape, and to punish unspoken thoughts, I suspect, might be especially dangerous to it.  Perhaps in a few more days we shall revisit the issue, especially if you find then that you are ashamed or feel that you have not been set right and made clean."  Or sooner, if Sevar's thoughts show her to be dwelling on it in fear fantasy, but this of course Subirachs does not say out loud.

"I understand. Can you reassure me - I know it is true and obvious, but I think it would help to hear it - that I couldn't, actually, betray the project and run off with Keltham, that I belong to this and cannot escape -"

"You could not," she lies.  "You do not know all that Security has done.  I do not know all that Security has done.  I doubt the Queen or the Grand High Priestess know all that Security has done separately rather than collectively.  And more importantly, Hell owns your soul already, whether or not any particular devil does.  Do not be mistaken about where the value of those three Wishes or your ability to bargain for them comes from; they are not the value of your more certainly coming to Lord Asmodeus, but your value to some high devil of Dis who gains you against their rivals."

"Your actual value to Lord Asmodeus I would not even dare guess, Chosen."

"I have been assuming it will depend on whether I can pull this off or whether I fail and make myself useless in the failing. But that - I can live with that."

How about if somebody actually TELLS HER how she's supposed to keep this woman out of Irori's clutches or ensure that Keltham can't love her without becoming Asmodean.

Well, there is that.

"If we may move on, Chosen, I have a thorough report on Meritxell and a preliminary report on many of the others, in regards to what I might be able or unable to accomplish for each with brief slave training."

" - yes. Go ahead."

"Meritxell sincerely desires to impress people.  This is unfortunately as close as she comes to having any innate aptitude for submission.  She is all pride and no slavery.  If Keltham expects submission of Meritxell and the expectation is clear to her, she is apt to show him what he expects, to impress him.  She could play a clear role we give her, to impress us.  But I am not sure what his reading-skills will make of that... it is such a ridiculous inconvenience, that!  I keep wondering if it might just be a matter of enhancing Splendour high enough to fool him, but, the trouble is, I can think of no safe way to trial any such method, what if it fails!  I cannot, without great efforts, even try to make Meritxell be in actuality what Keltham would want to see, in regards to being aroused by pain or domination.  Meritxell would have no trouble performing in every aspect and would even delight in that performance, as she delights in succeeding at anything, but I cannot see a clear and sure road to having Keltham perceive that she is aroused by it."

"I am also somewhat concerned that if Meritxell is constantly around Keltham, her pride will bite at her if Keltham desires her to be things she is not in truth - that if he visibly desires her to be a 'real' submissive and not just the outer shell of one, then, even if she fools him, she will still feel that she is not doing well enough.  Not that her unhappiness would ordinarily be a problem, of course, but if it starts to interfere with her arousal in ways that Keltham can read, it becomes a problem."

" - yeah. I will - think on what to tell Keltham, given that. I suspect it's not worth risking a lie, he's going to eventually get suspicious if everyone seems to have my Worldwound problem - we have presumably got some girls who have a reasonable normal amount of masochism?"

If that weren't true, she would suspect divine interference!  Jacint readily lists several girls all of whom, if they caught Keltham's eye, would require hardly any work to make into most reasonable things Carissa would want them to be; and more girls that could be managed with more work.

Asmodia isn't one of them, Ione is in a strange Nethysian limbo with respect to what can be asked of her, and, if you add Meritxell to that set, those are all of the girls after Carissa Sevar who would be the most obvious bets to catch Keltham's eye in terms of demonstrated talent.

Does Asmodeus's Chosen Keltham Expert think it's possible to line up Keltham with a next girl in virtue of her being, say, slutty?  Subirachs can easily turn Yaisa or Peranza slutty, and others could be managed with only slightly more work.

Probably, especially if they set it up and then have Carissa indisposed for some reason that evening. He is a teenage boy and in Carissa's assessment vulnerable to cornering him to tell him how badly you want him, and so on.

Asmodia is a bad idea until Keltham's actually Evil, unless they hear otherwise from her custodians in Hell who might've had something in mind about this. Jacint has authorization to get started on encouraging some girls who seem like a good fit. "Though mind whether you think it's affecting them in a way that'll affect their performance in class; I need to keep track of that, and it might be a higher priority than arranging romances for Keltham."

"I suppose that if I pointed out how much easier this would be if we could select new students for him on the basis of their prior sexualities, you would say that it... won't work for him, if we rebuild the current party?  If we dismiss all the less-achieving students to Egorian's 'Project Lawful', and replace them with equally intelligent but more submissive wizards taken from all Cheliax?  How much is Ostenso of all our wizard academies, I confess I do not know."

"....he might agree to adding some new students now that we know who the top performers are, but they'd have to genuinely be the caliber of Ione and Meritxell and Asmodia. I think he'll have vague Good objections to dismissing the worse performers."

"It would be easier than solving some of our other problems the hard way.  Though they would need to be caught up on Keltham's earlier lectures, and would be behind on... whatever strange cumulative exposure it is that turns people into Project Lawful girls, if you'll forgive the phrase."

"I'll inquire of the other wizard academies to see what they have in the way of attractive female easily moldable submissive masochists who are talented mathematicians."

This will start some additional rumors among wizard academy administrators, even if the request is highly classified and carefully disguised not to come from Project Lawful.

These rumors, to be clear, will not be true.  But somebody, somewhere, at some point, is going to use the phrase "math pets".

"It's worthwhile just to learn whether they can in fact catch up, I think. Let me know how training the more promising girls goes. I'll think what to tell Keltham about Meritxell. - and whether to tell Meritxell to back off."