Even if he can't read the nervousness or confusion, that silence is probably not a good look for Project Lawful in front of Keltham.

"Some reasons you could make up, even if you had to make them up afterwards, would be more plausible than others," says Asmodia.  "Meritxell and myself are more likely to find something to talk about with Sevar, than, say, Ione and Peranza talking to Yaisa."

"You could say that in advance, you wouldn't have to wait until afterwards.  The hard part would just be - going through enough different groups of three girls, in advance, to hit the one that actually happened - and maybe you'll say that we shouldn't try to go back later, if we don't say it in advance.  But you're a full dath ilani, you can do that, even if not perfectly."

"It's not true in real life that every group of three girls is equally plausible."

"Most possible groups of girls might seem pretty equally plausible from my perspective.  Probabilities are in the mind, after all, and I don't know your interpersonal interaction details as well as you do."

"But, yes, I can think of any reasons why Carissa-Ione-Pilar might be a favored group, aside from 'anthropics' even.  And yes, even if you're not a dath ilani, it can make more sense to, like, actually ask what the alleged reason was, before you conclude that it was a dark government conspiracy.  Though, obviously, if it's a conspiracy under consideration, you can't blindly trust the putative conspiracy's answer either."

"What was it actually, Carissa?  I've got my own guess mentally noted down already and at 40% probability."

"It came up at debrief that Abarco let a bunch of the girls copy Invisibility off him while Pilar and I were at the palace and Ione was in a coma, so I said they could have it off me. I invited Asmodia too but she wanted to talk to you about something."

"That was my guess except that I guessed Asmodia already had Invisibility.  I'll count it as a partial win for me."

"And, you know, if the three of you happened to take that time to talk about anything else that you didn't want me to know you were talking about, which is why Ione and Pilar didn't just copy Invisibility off another Security, I'm not going to count that as lying, dath ilani do the same thing.  You want your words to stay meaningful to others, by only uttering them when they correspond to reality; that's not the same as always revealing all your information."

"You don't need to comment on that, just saying."

"We also shared all the details of our secret plan to become gods but you're not going to be let in on them just yet."

"Interesting euphemism for that."  Obviously the main way one would accomplish this is by dating Keltham.

"Well, that's another run on Probability and what it looks like to parse things up with it.  I wouldn't say that we've really seen anything like the Law of Probability, but it's a large concept and this probably takes multiple runs from multiple angles."

"Among the lessons you could take from this run, I'd say, is how this method can accumulate gentle evidence over time.  I'm currently flailing around wildly because I just got to Golarion, and my attempts at Probability Sight mostly give me results that don't add up to coherent sense, everything is still failing all of the local consistency checks like 'Why doesn't Asmodeus count as Lawful Good then'.  But once I'm actually used to this place, if I am in the Conspiracy world, I'll be able to accumulate a bunch of things like the convenient absence of cleric spell compendia from the library, and eventually figure out the Dark Governance Conspiracy, even if no single piece of evidence is decisive.  They don't have to give themselves away with one big failure of an event that could never happen in the Ordinary world, I just need to be oriented enough to notice the soft accumulation of things that are 1.3 times as likely in the Conspiracy world than the Ordinary world, day in and day out.  Plus, because noise and error, another bunch of events that seem more likely in the Ordinary world than in the Conspiracy world, like Ione telling me about her book powers at all.  But if we're actually in the Conspiracy world and I've successfully calibrated my numbers on Golarion, there's more evidence pointing to Conspiracy than Ordinary and eventually it all adds up."

"Or maybe you could also do that gentle accumulation as a non-dath-ilani, I don't know how it actually works if you don't know any Law and never think in numbers.  But my sense of some of the crazy books I've read here is that there'd be more - people's thoughts switching around wildly, thinking, what if this, what if that, this leans that way, that leans this other way, and not really being able to add it all up properly until they encountered some" globally-decisive-local-victory "single revelation that decided the whole issue."

"All of this is of course ignoring the point that realistically Corrupted Governance just has a sufficiently high-powered caster hit me with a Suggestion spell, the recent demonstration of which to me was the point where I became comfortable enough to, like, actually say this sort of thing in front of you."

"But if for some strange reason I'm mistaken about that being a decisive point in real life, if you're all here as part of some grimdark plot, and even your highest ranks genuinely had no idea how Probability worked until I explained it today - then you'd better learn very fast if you want to keep this up, and hope you haven't already given yourself away with anything that I'll remember later."

"And if you specifically are here on some grimdark plot against your will, as would be really incredibly stupid of them, and your actual two-way contact with me is letting you learn faster and better than the people holding you here and just reading the transcripts - well, in that case, all of you are obviously the real protagonists of this story rather than myself, and may the 'tropes' be with you while I continue on in my obliviousness."

"Time for everybody to stand up and walk around and take a break.  Pilar, has Cayden Cailean got any snacks for us?"

You cannot, even if you are from Cheliax, tell that Pilar is anything but cheerful; she is making an actual effort about it, and drawing on her faith in Lord Asmodeus's inevitable victory.

So Pilar smiles cheerfully, as she stands up and brings forth cookies from wherever they wait.

...Apparently larger and nicer cookies than usual, iced with laughing faces.

Pilar's curse apparently thinks that some people need a bit of extra care, at this point, and also thinks that something is funny.

Carissa ducks out to use the bathroom and goes to Maillol. "We need him more distracted," she says without preamble. "He's smart and he's paying attention to the right things and I don't think we've lost the plot yet but I do think we're getting closer every day, which isn't sustainable. I want to try - having 'Lastwall' and 'Taldor' and 'Osirion' send emissaries, if we can swing it. I want to arrange that scrying field trip to Absalom and maybe an actual field trip to Goka on the grounds that it's far enough almost no one would be able to try anything - and as a bonus it's far enough away no one will know things about Cheliax. I want to catch someone attempting to infiltrate the grounds. I want a large bag of things we can pull out if he seems to be getting his bearings."

She pauses for breath.

"Asmodeus's instructions to me are a medium-hard no on a Goka trip, and Hell's instructions imply that's because there's a divine noninterference zone centered on Ostenso; if we take Keltham outside that zone, it's possible Abadar or Iomedae could sic Osirion or Lastwall directly on him.  For the rest, I'll get it done if those are my orders."

"I register that after Keltham's interpretation of his Vision of Hell spell, I myself considered faking a Zon-Kuthon attack on this project, a smaller one, and not with a god-war starting afterwards.  I rejected that plan without checking it with you," back when you were not my boss, "because at Keltham's Intelligence level I expected him to be suspicious of us having fed him exactly what he'd said he suspected.  If we throw too many distractions at him, he may start thinking that he's in a game we're controlling."  (Maillol isn't being a good Probability-user per se, he hasn't reviewed the Probability lecture, he is just an experienced project manager suspicious of Complications.)

"Opinions on specific proposals:  The emissaries seem safe enough to fake, it seems like something alterCheliax would do and Keltham has no way of checking anything he sees.  Scrying trip to Absalom sounds shaky, too much we're not rigorously controlling that could go wrong on us, but if you think that'll reassure Keltham, it might be worth it.  Attempting to infiltrate the grounds - that makes him think this location is not secure, got known somehow, he maybe starts watching other people more closely if he thinks they might be infiltrators, requests a 'Glimpse of Beyond' spell to check.  Again, might be worth it if that sense of insecurity is what you think we want.  Clarity on goals and reasons would help me design an exact infiltration incident to your purpose."

"My original plan for keeping Keltham distracted, if that became necessary, was having girls dogpile him with overtures, and for them to fake interpersonal difficulties with him and each other as needed."

"I'm terrified of anything that might bring him back around to concluding that tropes are real, and I suspect romantic drama is that. Maybe non-romantic interpersonal difficulties among the girls, if there's any that won't ring outrageously false to him in the fashion that many real things do. I think Absalom is valuable precisely because we don't have control over what happens there, so it's credible, and it's not like people walk the streets proclaiming 'never contract with Asmodeans and the reason people don't like Evil is all the torture!'. But if there's somewhere like Absalom where Iomedae has less of a foothold maybe that'd be better."

Absalom is where the Starstone is, so where She ascended; all the Starstone gods are worshipped there.

"Oppara, or Isfahel. If Keltham asks the person scried-upon to ask some specific questions of the locals we can swing that with Suggestion or Dominate Person. Let's say no on infiltrating the grounds for now unless we need an emergency distraction for Keltham having a bright idea of some kind or another. 

Next question. Do you think your Asmodeanism is built on a bunch of lies that will fall apart in contact with enough dath ilanism."

"Mine, no.  An Atonement flatly wouldn't work on me, and I would not actually take eternity as a statue over Hell.  I do not, in fact, have better options."

"All of the girls except Pilar, yes.  They're not Inner Ring at all, weren't being tracked for it at second-circle, even after they sold their souls I was thinking of that more as an anti-oracle measure and a way of keeping them in line, and I admit my failure in not realizing earlier that this would create an inexorably developing problem as the project was redirected towards mastering dath ilanism."

...it actually is easier to say, and think, if he mostly doesn't expect to be punished significantly for that failure.  Well.  In the short term.

'wasn't being tracked for the inner ring' also describes Carissa, and she's not on the brink of betraying her god and her country to run off and hide behind Iomedae's paladins. The question that comes immediately to mind is 'why them and not me' but the answer comes to mind just as quickly which is that, yes, they also expect Carissa's Asmodeanism to fall apart. 

Or maybe just that they think the reason Asmodeus picked her, out of all the girls, is that she's different from them.  

If the girls all deconvert then the project fails, they're all executed, and Cheliax plays catchup stealing inventions from other countries and maybe eventually becomes Nidal, a god-sponsored country without ambitions beyond its borders where its god can't sculpt them precisely enough.

She can't allow that to happen. 

"Do you think - the operative ingredient - of your Asmodeanism not being built on lies is the thing where an Atonement wouldn't work? You're not doing anything we could duplicate in students for whom an Atonement might work?'

"I will give you my opinion if requested, Chosen of Asmodeus, but you might be needing to talk to Subirachs.  You exceeded my ability to correct you a while ago."

"From my perspective, which is narrowly focused on our Lord's aspect of tyranny, it's about what people want and what their options are.  Pilar needs Asmodeus and has no other options among divinities.  You are willing to undergo any amount of pain to become everything it is that you want to be, and I get the impression you've noticed at this point that there are things Axis and Heaven would demand you cut off from yourself.  So you don't need lies to serve Asmodeus, and that qualifies you for the Inner Ring of people who are allowed to think."

"Most people don't like pain.  Their inner lives aren't much more complicated than that.  We put the Outers into whatever situation we have to put them into, to make sure they end up in Hell and stay productive in their mortal lives, and teach them to deceive themselves into believing that's their own choice."

"I respectfully register that you may not have grasped how stupid most people are and how short their horizons get.  You may not have been read in on this part, Sevar, desertion is a major problem for Cheliax with wizards at fifth circle and above who can Teleport.  Selling your soul is mandatory before that point.  They desert us in significant numbers anyways.  It's not even that they'd prefer nonexistence and are planning to buy a Plane Shift to Abaddon at the end of otherwise indulgent lives.  It's that having to accept the hierarchy in Cheliax is an unpleasant thing that's happening to them right now, and the punishment in Hell can wait seventy years or so they hope, so they pick now over later and run.  That's with people who were Intelligent enough to become fifth-circle wizards, though of their Wisdom I couldn't attest."

"What we've got going for us, with this set of students, is that they've sold their souls and will end up in Hell if they end up anywhere at all.  Asmodia already decided that she'd rather take Abaddon, which isn't encouraging, but maybe losing half that way is still half left."

"But if our Lord put you to this task, then it must be a task that is possible.  And if I had to guess myself, the answer might be - those who would rather take Abaddon cannot become dath ilani of Hell, only those who've sold their souls or cannot sincerely Atone or have wills incompatible with other gods can become dath ilani of Hell.  But maybe dath ilanism does teach people not to be fucking stupid about their options like soul-sold wizards who desert on us, and that lets us scale about as far as other countries can take their own versions."

Carissa is confused, that fifth circle wizards desert even if they've sold their souls. It's confusing. It doesn't quite feel sufficient, that they're just very very stupid. Broken in some way, sure. She feels like Keltham, missing something that'd make the whole picture fit together, except usually when Keltham says that's how he feels he's actually missing eight things.

"I didn't know that. I'm - going to talk to High Priestess Subirachs. I - don't think it's a hopeless task but I did not have any idea how hard it was, and you should in fact have warned me sooner. I am aware you are all somewhat constrained by - trying to manage my situation - but what's important here is that the project not fall apart of contagious heresy and I didn't know it was close until Ione warned me." It doesn't carry a lot of force, as a reprimand with no punishment behind it, but it is what it is. 

Ferrer Maillol bows his head.  "Acknowledged, sir."

He does not, in fact, require further punishment to understand that he has fucked up.

Message from Security:  Keltham looks like he's thinking about reconvening.  Ione Sala requests permission to conduct a fake poll of the class to see if they want an hour to digest Probability, tell Keltham the majority voted yes, and send him off to study magic with Meritxell for an hour; or, Sala's preference, permission to take Keltham aside and scold him about producing anxiety in the class.  Sala also wants to know whether Asmodia in fact has superpowers and if she should read Asmodia in on, in Sala's words, the Asmodean sanity issue.

Ione is showing too much initiative and should stop it's kind of stressful having major decisions proposed by someone who is a heretic and not obviously working towards Asmodeus's goals here. She'd like closer attention to Ione's thoughts, please, what's she playing at, and -

- try to forget that she heard the suggestion itself and just think about whether she wants class to reconvene right now -

- no, because the kids could use more of a break. 

Tell Yaisa to pull Keltham aside and ask very apologetically if he can walk her through the thing she got stupidly wrong again, she's worried if she doesn't understand it when we restart then she'll be even more confused by the end of the day. Tell Asmodia to try to come up with something clever to do with the underlying laws that produce Probability to distract Keltham with after that. Tell Ione that she cannot take Keltham aside and scold him for that end of section lecture, even if she thinks she would in alter-Cheliax, that's too many layers. Tell Ione that Asmodia doesn't have superpowers but is now doing a seduction gambit with Keltham off the lack of superpowers, and that Ione should not bring Asmodia in on anything. 

And now to Subirachs, at a bit of a run.

Subirachs is in her usual abode.

Being totally candid works really well when you've been declared important by Asmodeus Himself and He's suspected of fighting with other gods over you. "Do you actually want to go to Hell?"

"...I recently realized that I was not looking forwards to it as much as might be hoped-for in one of Asmodeus's own, Chosen.  I don't fear the pain.  I don't fear being a slave myself again for a time.  I do worry - that my art might be smashed and remade entirely different in me, rather than perfected from this beginning."

"And what prompted this thought was wondering if - you might perhaps - be better at it, than those who now train souls and devils in Hell.  The only reason I can think of for your price, not even to Lord Asmodeus, but merely to one devil of Dis rather than another, is that they think you will be much better at creating devils.  I am wondering whether the correct way of training devils might - produce a devil whose arts of slavery are more like my arts, at the end."

"I have given some thought as to whether to request, as a reward for all my own service in this matter, to be Petrified until a thousand years after your own death, in hopes of being received by you in Hell."

" - that's what I was thinking too. Or - 

- not specifically you, I don't know enough about you to know if I have anything to teach you, but Hell values the Project girls, so Hell can't be imagining that the point of us is to turn us into Contessa Lrilatha, because they already know how to do that. ...I guess we could just figure out how to do it more efficiently. But it seems to me like there's something Hell wants us to learn how to improve. And so the best answer to the girls is that I'm going to make sure that Hell is a place where they grow. Except. 

They're not going to believe that, because it sounds completely ridiculous."

"We do have the option of swearing to Asmodeus of the truth of those things that we might tell them, by which we ourselves have come to suspect this.  It doesn't do to overuse that option, lest they come to expect it and suspect all unsworn is lies.  But it is an option, when you need to tell a fellow Asmodean something ridiculous and true - if you are about Asmodeus's own work, that is, lest you invoke His name for only your own benefit."

"There is also some degree of corroboration, if the Queen is willing to declassify it for them."

Jacint Subirachs hands Sevar a brief report written in the hand of and under the name of Abrogail Thrune, marked with nearly the most extreme possible Crown seals and penalties.

The Queen notes that this report was written after she reviewed the most recent batch of Project Lawful reports, including Sevar's apparent price in Hell and Keltham's speculation about what younger devils may not be allowed to know.  The Queen remarks that both of these facts were of higher urgency than they were treated as, and future such points should be reported to her immediately rather than batched.

After that review, the Queen at once set aside all her other work to inquire certain matters separately of Lrilatha and Gorthoklek.  And then summoned a series of devils herself, up to the most powerful she could summon without that being a grave matter.

The results show that the most powerful devils the Queen can lightly summon - admittedly, not mighty ones by Hell's standards - seem entirely ignorant of matters like whether there are twenty-one or twenty-three pairs of packages of heredity-specification in a human body.  Lrilatha answered correctly, but also answered affirmatively when asked if she had come by that information by way of Keltham.

Gorthoklek, who is nearly royalty of Hell (though, the Queen notes, relatively young for a pit fiend), cannot answer; and if Gorthoklek is shown the information by way of Keltham, he can then answer regarding what he has seen in the report, but he still cannot answer the question on his own terms.

The Queen speculates that the price for why Hell can seemingly back Cheliax to a greater degree than other Outer Planes back their mortal worshippers, is that Asmodeus and His highest slaves are extremely constrained in what they tell those beneath them in Hell who hold more commerce with mortals; saving perhaps the very highest devils who can perfectly avoid leaking any such information by any pathway.  Such enforced ignorance, in exchange for power in the mortal world, seems not discordant with His aspect of tyranny.

The Queen speculates that there is however no prohibition against a soul being allowed to retain and use such knowledge that it learned in life.  For if this is not so, Sevar's price in Dis seems inexplicable.

The Queen inquired of Gorthoklek upon all of this matter, and Gorthoklek said nothing to all of it, nor encouraged any of it, but neither did Gorthoklek call it prohibited.

"Oh."

It's not in itself very important how many pairs there are in humans, devils might just have no occasion to know it, but.

The Outer Planes have secrets, everyone knows that. And Hell has the most secrets; few can even set foot in Nessus, Hell's deepest layer. And the gods are sharply constrained in what interference treaty permits them. Asmodeus sent Gorthoklek and Contessa Lrilatha to Cheliax as advisors; Abadar has done no such thing in Osirion, that anyone knows of. No angel sits at the right shoulder of Queen Galfrey in Mendev, the paladin of Iomedae who holds her country's border with the Worldwound. 

So the shapes of the constraints are different for different gods. 

Secrets not just about Asmodeus or about history, but about Law, about the fundamental nature of reality -

"If the project lasts even a few years, we'll know things that only senior devils know. And Hell wants us very badly, and will prize us highly.

I am tempted to tell the students the whole of the reason I didn't sell my soul at first, and the whole of my attempt to sell it yesterday, and then tell them that if in order to make my project work I have to set up an entirely new training program in Hell, then I'll do that, and the only thing they need to be afraid of is my failure. Does that sound right?"

"I think - there will be some for whom that will be enough, for Meritxell, it will be enough, for Gregoria enough, for Asmodia it will not be enough but perhaps she would be willing to serve in Golarion if not in Hell and that would be enough for us, Paxti and Yaisa are not thinking enough upon such matters for their thought-transcripts to be helpful and I know not what will become of them if they start thinking, contemplating that plan for Peranza gives me an uneasy feeling, and of the others I am not sure."

"Huh. I guess I can take them aside one at a time and start with the ones that I have a plan for. 

Are you worried for my soul? I feel loyal but I keep thinking that if I were a different person watching Carissa and adding up probabilities I would be worried, and - I want to be steerable."