"I'd be less worried if I did not feel concerned there were 'tropes' around you, or fear what they might arrange for you in the way of temptations.  I don't know what to do with such matters except plead like a helpless baby to the Most High each time they arise."

Sigh. "Okay. I have to get back to class." It has been eight minutes and that's likelier in the conspiracy world than in the bathroom world, if only a bit likelier. 

Off she goes.

Keltham was in fact pondering that, but decided that the evidence seemed slight enough to go under the heading of "orient more to Golarion first" rather than "note it on the list".  If you want to pick up tiny pieces of evidence like that you'd better also start noting all the times Carissa doesn't take an eight-minute bathroom break as evidence the other way.

Besides, if Yaisa and Asmodia are meant to be distractions on purpose they're impossibly obvious ones.

Ione would like it noted for the record that she strongly suspects Keltham is adding up additional Conspiracy evidence for every minute that this goes on, and she should really be allowed to just take Keltham aside and scold him properly for scaring everyone in alter-Cheliax.

(Security conveys Ione Sala's thoughts to Sevar.  Sala's other thoughts show a weary contempt for Asmodean idiocy, but an apparently sincere belief that Lord Nethys would want her to keep on bailing these idiots out of their own idiocy until that's obviously no longer tenable.  Sala is also contemplating trying to further advance her own relationship with Keltham, to make surer that she ends up with him if he leaves, and remains able to continue doing whatever Lord Nethys wishes her to do for him.)

(Also Sala is trying to figure out whether her interest in scolding Keltham is anything sexual or not, because she's definitely finding it strangely fascinating.)

Carissa agrees that Keltham is adding up further evidence from everything that happens, because he told them that he was doing that in so many words not five minutes ago. Ione seems a little attracted to this vision of herself as the lone genius who can see what no one else can but Carissa is in this case incredibly unimpressed. Carissa does not want Ione to have a conversation about how scary this would have been if they were, you know, actually in a secret conspiracy, into which Keltham can meaningfully interpret lots of random phrases or facial expressions. She really thinks that conversation is likelier if Ione has something secret to convey to Keltham than if she does not. 

And Ione's permission-denied was already communicated, which means that Ione thinks she's achieving what, exactly, by making the request again? Permission remains denied.  

Carissa doesn't know whether people get beaten for that in Taldor but someone should look it up. 

Security will put someone on it.  Note though that Ione Sala has a previous agreement with Elias Abarco about her being treated as a friendly Nethys worshipper rather than an Asmodean so long as she behaves herself.

If that gets unilaterally renegotiated, there will be a lot of Securities wanting to stand in line and take turns.

On getting back to the room Carissa takes a cookie and joins some other girls who are ranking the Securities by how much they look like they really hope Nidal attacks so they can kill someone, because if the people with individual questions for Keltham ceased immediately when she returned then that really would look suspicious. 

The cookie is delicious.

Message from Asmodia:  Asmodia requested a Fox's Cunning and Owl's Wisdom in order to actually be able to come up with interesting questions for Keltham on the fly like that, which is in fact harder than people might think and can't be reliably done on future occasions.

While she's still enhanced, Asmodia wants to say that she's worried about the lack of intraproject communication, and proposes that a Nap Stack be set up for everyone tonight so that they can all stay up and get caught up on everything that's happened so far, including whatever Sevar considers to be the official line on Asmodia, and on Keltham's romance-pattern theory that they don't want him believing.

Also Ione asked Asmodia if she did in fact have superpowers, and was now one of the special girls like Keltham thought.  Asmodia told Ione that Milani came to her inside Hell and granted her the power to cancel enchantment-compulsions by hitting people on the head (not true).  It only occurred to Asmodia afterwards that there is probably some kind of policy constraining information about Keltham's pattern-theory, since Asmodia hadn't already been told about it earlier.  This is the sort of thing Asmodia thinks the Nap Stack plan might solve.

A Nap Stack allowing for an evening briefing would be great. It'll oblige all the girls to sleep in a 30 foot radius and Carissa can't predict whether Keltham will want her in his bed tonight but maybe they can be ready to cast it tonight if she can join them and tomorrow if she can't. 

Carissa told Ione that Asmodia did not have superpowers. She's not totally impressed that Ione also asked Asmodia. Carissa would love for Asmodia to be more candid with her about what exactly they're covering for, but in the absence of that, the line on Asmodia is that she doesn't have superpowers, obviously, because if she did then that would have been reported to the Crown.

Asmodia notes that she suspects Ione asked Asmodia first, since Asmodia can't order Ione not to ask Security after that, and only then asked Security.  Rather than first ask Security, and risk being ordered not to ask Asmodia.  This is obviously the sort of attempted cleverness that you'd punish if Ione were punishable, and that Ione did it anyways is evidence (in Keltham's sense) that Ione thinks she's not punishable for that kind of transgression.  Asmodia is confused about Project Lawful's stance on Ione.

Asmodia did expect that Sevar would say the official line is that Asmodia has no superpowers.  The question is if the other girls should be told that Keltham thought she might be part of a romantic pattern, but Keltham rejected that theory after Asmodia falsely told Keltham that she wasn't a full asexual, but Asmodia is in fact one, which Keltham must not be allowed to suspect.  Or told that Keltham said having no superpowers except being good at math would be on-theme for an asexual.  Asmodia feels like she keeps tripping up on inadequate information herself, and registers her own opinion that everyone who isn't Keltham should be told everything.

Also Asmodia herself requests, for whatever that's worth, to be read in on everything to do with Keltham's pattern, transcripts of anything he's said about it anywhere.

Asmodia registers, before she forgets, that she thought that two-thirds of the class going quiet during Keltham's conspiracy lecture was a bad look, and that Asmodia, Sevar, Pilar, Meritxell, and Ione should have some explicit policy about trading off turns on speaking up to cover any future frozen silences.  Is it possible to train students out of going quiet like that?  Asmodia imagines Keltham saying that you have to identify one person, at a time, who has the responsibility to speak up, so that the class doesn't look quiet.  But you have to somehow do that in a way that makes the probabilities look the same to Keltham for which girl talks next.

Asmodia apologizes for all this pestering, she is trying to say it all while the Cunning and Wisdom still hold.

Carissa should try Owl's Wisdom herself.

Those are good suggestions; they're appreciated. Elias Abarco unilaterally negotiated some kind of thing with Ione and Carissa needs to figure out what to do about it; everyone is pretty fed up with Ione but she seems to believe herself to be heroically saving the stupid Asmodeans from themselves, which is maybe useful. As soon as there's time Carissa will read Asmodia in on the patterns thing, and requests in the meantime that Asmodia contemplate whether, given what Carissa already knows, there's anything she could usefully be told about how Hell can be made good for girls who've started down the path to dath ilanism.

Um.  There's a great solution actually but it's Secret and Asmodia doesn't know if it works for anyone besides her.

Asmodia Messages back, "I confirm I heard."  She does not think she ought to acknowledge it as an order.

The Owl's Wisdom and Fox's Cunning wear off nearly simultaneously and it feels, not like dying, she has died, dying doesn't feel like this.

For a second Asmodia thought she could almost do it, almost think like Keltham does, match him on his own level and shape the probabilities he saw so that nothing would alarm him - if that's even what her Sponsor wants -

Asmodia Messages Security to queue a message for Sevar next time she checks, she doesn't want to disturb Sevar again now.  The message says that if they're allowed to request anything they want in order to help the Project, Asmodia thinks a headband of +4 Intelligence and +4 Wisdom might barely suffice to let her run the probability-shaping side of Cheliax's game against Keltham.

...uh huh.

Security acknowledges this queued message.

Asmodia almost had it, or she thinks so.  Asmodia thinks she was almost seeing the way Keltham sees, in brief flashes she didn't know how to put into words, this more likely, this less likely, shifting balances between them that shift other probabilities - and it excites her, she can see the game he's pointing to, between opposed dath ilani.  She almost saw the game, and Asmodia wants to play it.  And yes, she also wants an excuse to get the headband that she'd need to win.

She can always fuck up deniably if it looks like her Sponsor would want that.

All thoughts thus read are duly recorded, to be noted to Sevar along with Asmodia's intended message.

Carissa meant it, about giving all her slaves intelligence headbands because more capable people are just better. 

She has somewhat mixed feelings about this exact specific instance.

- later. She can make that decision while Owl's Wisdomed herself, and possibly actually literally contact Hell about what Asmodia's whole deal is. But the fact of the matter is that she's not yet competent enough to win this game, and if Asmodia might be - and if Asmodia is on their side -

- but what in Hell could possibly have put Asmodia on a different one? Certainly Asmodia having secret powers from Hell is likelier in the case where Hell saw a way to help them, than in the case where someone is subverting the operations of Hell. Lots likelier. Call it....ten times likelier? A hundred?

She tells Security to tell Asmodia she's thinking about it.

Asmodia is not, in fact, particularly expecting that Cheliax has a +4 INT / +4 WIS headband available to give her.

PL-timestamp:  Day 6 / Late Afternoon

Keltham now continues upon his project of making random diving runs on Probability from random angles in hopes of conveying a fragmentary understanding to adults over days instead of a true understanding to children over years.

Based on how confused some people were at the end of the last session - assuming that wasn't an elaborate Conspiracy distraction as Carissa pretended to go to the bathroom while actually having frantic conversations about how Keltham might be on to them (again, said out loud) - Keltham starts by posing a bunch of mostly-algebraic problems for deriving various quantities from others, what other places might call sheer math homework.

Yes, he knows that he's using unknown dath ilani places and people and objects and statistics, and that he might as well be using gibberish words instead.  He just doesn't know enough about Golarion to make up 12 realistic Golarion statistical problems, so just treat everything as algebra, please, and bear with the awfulness.

Likelihood ratio on ~~~ between ~~ and ~~~~ is 4, if P(~~◁~~~) = 68%, what was P(~~~~◁~~~)?

(It's pretty tame awfulness by comparison to math homework in almost any Chelish math class.  The main awful thing about it is how Keltham doesn't work any similar example problems before expecting you to solve the ones he poses.  The other awful thing is that Keltham sometimes makes mistakes in his own math, and when that happens he expects you to argue with him when he gives you the wrong answer.)

Keltham is constantly tracking the Conspiracy world in his mind.  That's part of this.  He's living in both worlds simultaneously and distinctly and unhesitatingly.  There's no pause in him about whether or not the Conspiracy is real, for purposes of accusing Carissa of being in on it within the Conspiracy world.  Keltham steps all the way mentally into the world where the Conspiracy is just a thing and Carissa is just part of it, and then in that world when Sevar suddenly vanished away 'to the bathroom' obviously she was up to something in response to his own lecture and obviously the other students' questions were meant as a distraction.

Asmodia sees the game now, has seen the game, even without the enhancement spells she remembers.

Cheliax can't rely on what anything 'looks like', they can't ask if it's a 'giveaway' or if it could 'just as reasonably be something else'.  Keltham isn't going to wonder each time whether or not the Conspiracy is real and mentally back down from labeling Carissa's departure as suspicious.  Cheliax has to consider what everything will look like to Keltham while he's mentally inhabiting the world where the Conspiracy is just real and there's no arguing with that.

There was only one guaranteed-correct move in that game, and it was to mentally live inside the alterCheliax world themselves, and just do what alterCheliax would do, notice every time anyone's overt behavior departed from their behavior in alterCheliax whether or not that looked like a giveaway at a first glance.  Sevar needed to notice that the version of her not in the Conspiracy world probably did not suddenly need to go to the bathroom, because Keltham did notice that.  If that was even twice as likely on the Conspiracy world as the Ordinary world, and Keltham correctly estimates that, Asmodia has grasped by now that a lot of "twice as likelies" multiplied together can add up very fast.  Only - they can't just live in alterCheliax either, she doesn't think - they can't win that way, convince Keltham it's all real - he doesn't know what the real Conspiracy or real Ordinary worlds would be like, they have to use that somehow -

Asmodia sees the game, the game between true dath ilani.  She can't properly play the game against Keltham without enhancement, but she can see how fast Cheliax is losing.  They can lose it very quickly once Keltham gets oriented enough that he starts believing in his own numbers.  Hours, not days.  It's all there in the math.

And that's enough of Keltham doing all the work of inventing homework problems himself.  They've solved some, now, they should be able to make up their own probability problems.

Everybody in class make up one probability problem, copy to a scrap of paper, write what you think is the correct answer on the other side of that scrap of paper, then pass it around for others to solve, starting with Keltham.

A man is walking down the street in Ostenso dressed in silk robes. What are the odds that he is a noble?

You see a wizard cast a Dimension Door. What are the odds that the wizard is fifth circle?

A bird that lands on your windowsill is behaving suspiciously. What is the odds that it's a polymorphed spy?

Six students gave the exact same wrong answer on a math test. What is the odds that they cheated?

He'd kinda meant to make up a problem like, here are three quantities, determine a fourth one algebraically.

But that's fine; those four students can just make up the key quantities needed and note them back down on their questions, right?  They don't have to be right, just plausible.

(Though that fourth one is gonna be kinda hard at their level...)

Yep! Say one in two hundred people is a noble and all nobles wear fine clothes and so do one hundredth of non nobles. 

Say that all wizards who cast Dimension Door are at least fourth circle and a third of fourth circle casters are fifth, but fifth circle casters would be twice as likely to cast Teleport in that situation.

Say that, uh, 999/1000 birds are just birds, and birds behave suspiciously 1/100th of the time, whereas spies behave suspiciously 80% of the time. 

Say that a quarter of students cheat on math tests, and that a student cheating off another would definitely have gotten that wrong answer, and a student who wasn't might have a one in five chance of making that mistake by chance.