"He hasn't indicated yet that he wants to pursue me and said he needed time to think it over."

Should she be briefing the others present about any other aspects of things?

"I want Keltham and am not a heretic," Meritxell says with a glare at Ione. 

"And I appreciate that about you, and it's possible that the outcome of the conversation with Ione is that I don't trust her enough, or that I think it'd be salutory for Keltham's next romantic interaction to be with someone who isn't faking anything. But if in alterCheliax Ione'd totally go after him then by default we do that. We have to adhere really closely to what we'd do in alterCheliax, if we're going to stand a chance."

"Does Keltham actually want girls who don't have incredibly interesting backgrounds, I mean, I assume that's why he asked the question?"

"I wasn't planning to not seduce Keltham ever at all," says Peranza.

"Keltham asked that question to verify his tropes theory, which will be discussed at briefing tonight. He does want other girls, or at least he might."

"Is there any reason that we shouldn't just have everyone who's currently interested competing to seduce him at dinner tonight," says Paxti, who feels that she was originally promised this scenario when she 'agreed' to work on Project Lawful.

"Take a step back and think very carefully if that is what would happen in alter Cheliax, and if it is, then yes, you may."

"I'm pretty sure that's exactly what would happen in alter Cheliax," says Meritxell. 

"I'm not.  We were originally recruited to do that for reasons having to do with the real Cheliax.  We have to figure this out step by step, what happened in the alter-Cheliax instead, when they recruited us here, what instructions we got in alter-Cheliax, and then we need to write it down so everybody is living in the same alter-Cheliax about it, and we have to put up a huge wall somewhere with all of this written down, Keltham asked me earlier what kind of screening questions we'd gotten before coming here and I had to make something up and that needs to be on there - I needed to make up an answer quickly, and I bet Security didn't copy everyone else as soon as I said it, which means that Keltham could have come up to Paxti and asked her to answer immediately what the screening questions were like and he could have caught us right there before Security had time to fill her in.  Don't you get it, we're playing this game against a real dath ilani!  The only reason we're not already out is that Keltham isn't oriented enough to start playing for real."

"- ask the Grand High Priestess now about Asmodia's headband," says Carissa. "and yes, that's the answer I was about to give. AlterCheliax has to be complete, it has to have every detail, for the same reasons it had to be based on Taldor in the first place. Figure out your experience of every day up to this point and then figure out if you'd flirt with Keltham."

"So, thinking back, I now suspect I significantly fucked up the original things I said to Keltham, back when I was trying to make sure Lord Nethys didn't destroy my soul for not even trying to carry out His mission.  I need to figure out what alterIone was thinking in alterCheliax when she said everything she did, and what that implies about whether alterIone wants to make another try at Keltham and when.  A Security transcript of that conversation might be helpful."

"Is Asmodia in charge of this now?"

"You know what, for the time being, yes."

"I request transcripts of literally everything that's been said to Keltham or by him that I wasn't there for.  I don't know if I'll be able to finish that before my Ring of Sustenance kicks in, but with your permission I plan on not taking any downtime today or tonight and telling Keltham I didn't feel like I needed downtime today if he asks... no, wait, would that be too much less likely in Ordinary... well, I'll figure it out."

"Pending headband, I'm going to try to work out answers unenhanced and then get enhanced at the end to review and correct everything.  The Owl's Wisdom is important for this, not just the Fox's Cunning, I don't know why yet but it is.  So the number of those available to me is the number of times per day I can figure out significant parts of the game or make complicated decisions in it."

"Unless otherwise instructed, I think my current priority is figuring out alterCheliax's seduction mission parameters before dinner.  Sevar, you know what alterCheliax is supposed to be, and why, to make it acceptable to Keltham, that's not a part of this I understand, so I think you can't just go off and leave me to it.  After that we can figure out what alterIone was thinking, I'm not looking forwards to that but accept it as my job.  Then if alterIone is still making a run on Keltham Ione can talk to Sevar about that."

Message:  Sevar, if we're also trying to not have Keltham end up believing in the patterns, I can't do any part of my job without your supervision until I know everything you do about them.

"I'll be here with you advising. The place we want alterCheliax to be is the best place in Golarion for Keltham to start developing Civilization, a place that's not very far along the road to Law but is trying and has already improved on a decade ago when we were Taldor. And also Keltham's specifically paranoid of the girls being ordered into his bed so Cheliax has made particular strides in not doing that, insofar as it's compatible with things people have already said." 

Message: I'll brief you on tropes when we're alone.

Keltham is reasonably ecstatic about being a proper self-powered spellcaster instead of a divine surrogate spellcaster!

Keltham did not, of course, cast his Silent Image right away.  Instead he deliberately arrives slightly late to dinner, hoping everyone will be there already and he won't have to await any stragglers.  He doesn't want to delay between arriving and showing this off, nay, not even for food, this is going to be too awesome if it works.

Is everybody here in the dining hall yet?  Are they, are they?

Yep! They have worked out what flirting will occur in alterCheliax and are resolving informal bets on what'll be for dinner (it's fish).

Betting is an encouraging sign too!  Not literally all virtue begins from betting on things but yes quite a lot, as the proverb goes!

"Guess who's not just a laundry wizard anymore!  Everyone get within a 20-foot radius of me, turn off all the lights if that helps, I'm going to show you a Silent Image of dath ilan for as long as I can maintain concentration.  Unless of course this spell just completely fizzles, it's my first time."

Why does she feel terrified. 

They gather around.

Behold WIZARDRY.

Keltham isn't sure if he'll be able to do things like animation, or changing between entirely different images while he holds concentration.

So start out strong!  How about if they're surrounded by full blackness, he won't try for stars yet, just the silent image of black walls around them to screen out light, and above them within the resulting darkness is -

Dath ilan!  Nighttime, so soft traceries on the continents are glowing red, with a few spots of whiter light for cities that never sleep and have been allocated space far away from all telescopes!

Oooohs and aaaaahs. 

What Golarion will be, if they succeed. If she succeeds, because they'll fail if she does.

Can he possibly add the distant stars too, via imagining that the edges of his illusion are walls emitting appropriately incoming photons, as should look right to him from inside?  That's simpler than a looming skyscraper will be, he doesn't need to worry about parallax.

Yep!!