" - yes. I think you/re right. 

I think that I should go to a temple in Ostenso, just an ordinary one that won't recognize me, with a punishment code for thinking disrespectfully of Asmodeus."

"To humble your pride?  That's a true question.  I can guess your intuition here but not know it yet; you did not think it in words."

" - sort of? To stop thinking of punishing myself as something that has to be done exactly right, for me to benefit from it, instead of something that I have to get good at benefitting from, regardless of what exactly it is."

"Chosen, you are slaver now and not only slave.  You need to think of torments as tools that have effects.  Rugatonn assigned you this task specifically so that you would learn to use torture, not only because you were starting to be reckless.  If you learn how to benefit from any random torment you are given, you will not have learned something useful for ruling over Project Lawful, because they won't have that skill."

"Bluntly, Sevar, you have a mental block on choosing torments and not just enduring them.  You have a block against it even when that makes no sense from the standpoint of either Asmodeus's interests or your own.  You refused me specific input on what instruments I should requisition to lend to Keltham, though admittedly with some fortuitous results.  You refused me specific input on how to punish you for your failure in the game you designed, after I told you that you would regret not being specific."

"You will not go in with a punishment code for heresy and leave the exact choice of torment to the temple.  You will think about what exactly could be done to you, you will think about its probable effect on you, you will decide on a punishment that you think will teach you not to disrespect Asmodeus in the future, you will actually undergo this punishment.  You will not let them assign you some torment you didn't choose, and then try to learn the intended lesson regardless.  It's a reasonable thing for an Asmodean to want to learn, but it is not what Aspexia Rugatonn told you to learn."

" - acknowledged."

But she doesn't WANT to try to come up with specific - that's really stupid, now that it's out in the open -

- but she doesn't expect the specifics matter. That's...also probably stupid? Of course the specifics matter. In any other kind of teaching the specifics matter a lot. 

Is there a better objection lying there?

If you were trying to explain what Abrogail did to Carissa, you would not get anywhere by saying that she let Carissa run around for a while, then lit her on fire a couple of times, then carved runes into her skin, then petrified her. Those are all things that happened, but they aren't the operative ingredients of the thing that happened. Abrogail started with an aim in mind - to drive Carissa into a particular state - and then picked tools that produced that state. 

Why is it hard to relate to herself that way? She wants to get Carissa into a particular state - she wants to become the competent ilani Asmodean that she'll need to be for all the work she has ahead. So what are the tools for that job?

...well, obviously, lectures from Keltham, and from the High Priestess, those are tools for the job. But they're not punishments. 

Having someone sear Asmodeus's holy symbol into her skin with a hot poker is not counterproductive for making her the competent ilani Asmodean she's supposed to be. It's unpleasant, so it's serving one of the purposes of punishment. It can drive her to the state of miserable desperation where she wishes she had not erred. It is obviously a satisfactory response. But - it feels stupid? It feels unsatisfactory, as a result to 'how do you make Carissa better', like, you'd never come up with that if you were starting from scratch -

If she were starting from scratch, and someone thought disrespectfully about Asmodeus, what would she do, after she explained their error? Maybe have them talk to a devil much smarter than them, and be punished for every error in their understanding; that seems like it'd inculcate the appropriate sense of how those who command us are wiser than us, and have thought more deeply, and we should not assume them stupid. But she's already got a bit of a problem where punishments need to feel big and dramatic to suit her, and that's simply not sustainable on a society-wide scale....

Well, now the Chosen seems to be trying to invent the entire ilani theory of torture from scratch on the spot, and Jacint's not going to interrupt that or comment on it until Sevar gets visibly stuck.

...possibly some of the problem here may be that Sevar has been tortured by Abrogail and taught by Keltham, and is now trying to hold her own concept of corrective torture to that frankly ludicrous standard in both respects, to the point where everything she can think of as a beginner seems so awful that she can't think of anything?  That kind of perfectionistic mental block can develop in professional-level slaves, or so Jacint has heard.

Carissa is actually thinking that since she's just starting out it'd be all right if whatever she comes up with is only half as useful per unit of time as Abrogail at torture and half as useful per unit of time as Keltham at teaching. You don't get the Starstone by standing at the moat daydreaming about it. 

What things can you at least sometimes get from torture.

- person regrets having done the thing they did. In this specific case Carissa already regrets it because it was incorrect; she isn't sure she needs additional regretting it

- no, better to think, she isn't sure why she needs additional regretting it. What does regretting it past the point of having been corrected achieve? Possibly it inculcates habits against similar mistakes? Not only will you not make this mistake again, you won't make related mistakes either? Or maybe there's something like - you have both a conscious and a subconscious system for arriving at beliefs, and arguments speak to the conscious one, and pain speaks to the unconscious one, and to actually stop making mistakes you need them corrected on both levels? That feels - right, it feels like the sort of premise you could build something like Cheliax on and explain it to someone like Keltham, so assume for now it's true -

- the dumbest most straightforward kind of punishment to align the subconscious with truth would be, when you think something wrong, you instantly receive a painful shock, until your brain learns not to have thoughts like that. Unfortunately Cheliax doesn't have the resources to deliver punishments instantly, which is why much of what punishment is must be internalized - you instantaneously feel a sense of terror at the thought you just had, and unpleasant anticipation. of the eventual punishment, and that dread is what keeps your mind in line with truth. And then the actual punishment is just to deliver on the promise and keep the dread around for next time. 

- but there seems to be a problem with that? Peranza's problem could be diagnosed in part as that she has installed self-punishment for so many of her thoughts that even when she's allowed to think them she can't, and everyone thinks she's at the highest risk of having a meltdown and becoming unsalvageable. So punishment needs to be designed to avoid the failure mode where the subconscious correction fires excessively, even at thoughts that are necessary for achieving Asmodeus's goals. Possibly Cheliax as it exists now isn't very good at avoiding this failure mode because it only comes up when you drop someone into a context sufficiently far outside the one they're familiar with. 

- Pilar doesn't flinch with dread or terror from any of her thoughts, and is a very good Asmodean. She knows she'll be punished sometimes, but she doesn't mind that; her internal attitude towards it is not one of dread. That seems better. How do you get that. 

- Carissa seems to have dismantled lots of her very important internal processes for punishing herself for thoughts. Some of this she did at Abrogail's behest, because thoughts and feelings are tied closely together and Abrogail wanted her to stop looking away from her feelings. Some of this she did because the flinches kept getting in the way of figuring out how to do her job. That does put her, though, in a dangerous position; she might fail to flinch away from something she was really really supposed to flinch away from, and end up condemning Asmodeus. It is worth hurting herself very badly, to avoid that. It's just not obvious what kind of hurting her will in fact avoid that. 

- She feels like this is an extremely hard case for punishment and not actually a particularly good place to teach her how punishment works! It makes sense for her to be assigning and conducting torture sessions for normal people who it won't be a catastrophe to punish either excessively or insufficiently but it seems like really, someone qualified should be assigning torture sessions to an extremely complicated case who it's catastrophic to err with! 

"Chosen, you are trying, again, to accomplish too much with one torture session."

"You are not going to accomplish half as much as the Queen in the same time.  The thought is almost absolutely absurd.  You have been frankly spoiled for how torture works for everyone else.  The Queen, if she was explaining exactly what she did to you, would - know how her carving a series of runes into your skin, gave you a sense of approaching dread as the runes visibly approached completion, or rather, even I know that part, but she would have some plan encompassing that sense of approaching dread, whose diminishing time was a vital part, a reason why your thoughts had to be under an apparent time pressure right then.  The Queen would have some reason why that carving was exactly as painful as it was, maybe about how much your thoughts were focusing there and on other things she wanted you to think.  I don't know because I'm not Abrogail fucking Thrune!"

"I hope for Abarco's sake that the Queen has at no point read a full transcript of his rape of you, because she will think that he was doing every single part of it completely wrong.  I don't know how she'll think it was completely wrong.  If I knew that the Queen would have previously made me a para-Duchess of Cheliax and attached me to her personal service.  I can't hope to match her, I am, after all, nothing but a seventh-circle priestess of Asmodeus specializing in slavery."

"If you were literally anyone else but the Chosen of Asmodeus, I would tell you to completely give up hope of ever matching the twentieth part of the prowess of Abrogail Thrune."

"As it stands I am telling you to temporarily reduce the scope of your ambitions."

"Rugatonn's words to you were, 'You have flown very high and very far, and I think there is starting to be in you some of the recklessness that you saw in Asmodia.'  Asmodia solved her problem by lighting her hand on fire for thirty seconds.  Said also the Most High, 'Consult with Subirachs and devise a punishment for yourself that you expect to restore your cautionary judgment about when to decide in your thoughts that Lord Asmodeus would be a fool.  If enduring that torment makes you weaker, if it fails and must be repeated stronger, you will have only yourself to blame for either end.'"

"Mark how the Most High did not say that you were to be tortured into absolute loyalty to Asmodeus henceforth, or that you were to never think any such thoughts again.  She challenged you to devise a punishment that would restore such cautionary judgment as you might have had before flying so high and far.  Ordinary caution such as any good Asmodean might have.  And if your punishment proves too light?  Did the Most High say that you would then be deemed a failure and cast into Hell?  Did she say that in this event the Project would descend into catastrophe?  No, she said that you might need to be punished again and stronger."

"You already regret your error.  That does, in fact, do most of the work.  You still need to be punished to complete that regret, to let something deep inside you know that what was above you was displeased and retains the power to punish.  Something deep within you needs to be reminded that your fears are real and not just a payment to be indefinitely deferred."

"Having Asmodeus's holy symbol seared into you with a hot poker is not something I would assign for this case, myself.  But it would work, given that you already regret the error, or rather, it would work if you could manage to stop thinking of it as stupid.  Of course it feels stupid.  You're a child taking her first steps and the standard to which you're holding yourself is Abrogail fucking Thrune."

"It's not how you would restore Carissa Sevar's caution in her thoughts if you were thinking out a plan from scratch?  What then?  Speaking to a devil and being punished for every error of thought?  I doubt Gorthoklek is allowed to offer us such a powerful assistance as that, or that lesser devils even could.  That's not a plan for restoring Carissa Sevar's ordinary cautionary judgment.  That's a plan for how Keltham freed of his chains would remake Pilar Pineda into a devil native to Golarion."

"But if that seems to you more like it's on the right track than being seared with a pentagram, then perhaps you could ask yourself what would be some vastly less ambitious form of that same plan, such as might be prescribed to Tonia for some serious heresy of thought and to restore a similar ordinary caution."

This is overwhelming and stressful and INFINITELY WORSE THAN BEING TORTURED and Carissa hates it, hates how her thoughts are bouncing around between ideas, wants to yell at Subirachs, which would at least cause the torturing-of-Carissa to happen without further deliberate effort required on Carissa's part, wants to slap Subirachs which would get to it even sooner -

- instead of that she crosses to the fireplace, in which a fire is burning merrily, and steps in, and curls up in a ball and cries. 

This is probably not the best solution to any of her problems but it does solve them! Technically!!

She notes a slight flash of pity in herself about how Sevar is trying to learn all this in weeks instead of years, and reflexively crushes the emotion without very much thought other than that.

Subirachs dispassionately watches Sevar burning in the fireplace, continuing to monitor her thoughts by way of Security.

There's some insight here to incorporate into the broader picture, about how being in all-consuming pain is much much better than other things such as not knowing how to do your job, but she can't flesh it out right now properly, because of the all-consuming pain. The mostly-consuming pain. The quite a lot of pain which is nonetheless still leaving a shred of the internal monologue she'd been kind of hoping to shut up. 

Carissa's working theory, she thinks rather distantly at Subirachs, is that Carissae are not meant to decide their punishments, because their standards for themselves are too high; this seems like possibly another shard of ilani Asmodeanism, not that she can flesh it out properly either. A punishment from someone else she can endure more or less gracefully, but a punishment for herself can only ever be inadequate, unless it has destroyed that within her which finds everything inadequate, which they do not want.

Subirachs waits until Sevar has burned longer than the punishment she would actually have needed to assign herself, then crosses over to the fireplace with quick steps, and, not without a touch of cruelty, taps Sevar with Resist Energy (fire) followed by Cure Light Wounds.

"Enough, Sevar.  I think you are not likely to disrespect Asmodeus in your thoughts again, now that more suffering has come of it for you than simple regret.  All that is needful to complete the regret is that the punishment be real.  Nothing more than that should have been necessary.  It is one reason why Rugatonn gave you that first assignment; almost anything you tried should have worked."

"If you cannot punish yourself because it is never enough, that is a known slave psychology which would, unfortunately, be a deal safer in a more ordinary slave.  It is likely to be connected to other issues."

"You should, at the very least, be able to invent suggestions for me, and then believe me if I tell you some suggestion is good enough.  If you cannot believe me about that, it may indicate a flaw in your subordinacy by which not even your superior can punish you enough to set you right and make you clean.  And that, Carissa Sevar, is making life harder on yourself than Asmodeus wants of you.  Do think about that.  Very few people in all Cheliax have occasion to be told it.  Ever."

She might need that repeated. It had a lot of steps.

Then she will repeat it all slower.

Subirachs can be patient, when an important slave has otherwise been performing well while loaded down with an unreasonably vast workload.

"I think I understand. I'll - try to do better." Try to just have a default suggestion which she can put forward with no expectation it will in any way be better than the default thing; making it good for her is her problem.

"You will perhaps acquire more expertise about that as you learn the uses of torment on other personnel within your small tyranny.  On whom you will need to practice, if you cannot practice on yourself.  Do realize, there are people here besides Keltham and his women who can make mistakes.  The next time one of those infuriates you, consider experimenting."

"...that seems like a topic for another time, however.  For now, I'd suggest that you go take this night's sleep."

"Yes, High Priestess." She's right, though. Carissa is falling behind on cruelty lessons.

Hopefully just because she's juggling too many things.

While Sevar sleeps, Asmodia sets up their first prediction markets!

There's three rolling prediction markets on whether Tonia, Peranza, or any other researcher, break in the next week, which Tonia and Peranza aren't to know the current forecasts on.  Asmodia requested, and Maillol backed her, that every Security be required to bet at least one silver in all three markets, since they're the ones reading people's thoughts.  If the third market starts to go high, she'll start creating markets for the other girls.

Security was not, in fact, particularly reluctant to start betting in this market!  Peranza is running at 10%, Tonia at 5%.

There's a market about whether Yaisa ends up with an incredibly interesting background or problem or superpowers on account of tropes, since she apparently matched one of Keltham's fetishes.  Ione initially bought this market up to 60%, but strong counterbuying pressure has dropped it down to 23% since.

There's a market with three possible outcomes - the generalization seemed obvious enough to Asmodia - about whether Cayden Cailean is actually backing the Project in exchange for a Hell that Cayden Cailean considers improved, or if Cayden Cailean / Pilar's curse is planning to outright betray the Project at some point, or if something else is going on.  Nobody seems willing to bet on any outcome besides 'something else' and it's possible this market may end up being shut down and refunded.

Meritxell thinks there should be a market on some lower-stakes stuff, for practice - who Keltham'll want to sleep with next, or what he'll next lecture on, or whether he'll ask a question about [slavery/infanticide/how people get sorted into afterlives/elemental binding/other species], which would be helpful for prioritizing practice on their answers for those things.

Asmodia is worried about betting fatigue being a thing, and the extent to which none of them really have much solid information about Keltham the way that Security have solid info about people's secret thoughts... but if Meritxell is willing to step forward and say that she has guesses about some of these markets, Asmodia will set them up.  Worst case, nobody wants to bet against Meritxell and things get refunded.

The who-will-Keltham-sleep-with-today market is one that should be run where Keltham can see it, or maybe just see the previous day's results, and he can make sure they're doing it right!

Yes, Keltham will be charmed they're trying the prediction-markets thing and will correct them if they've got it wrong, and maybe some of the girls who haven't had much character development can do really well in the markets and get his attention that way. 

Gregoria asks if the project is in fact served by more people sleeping with Keltham. It kind of seems like it has enough of that.

"We're about to introduce the new students and some of them were chosen for usefulness for the Keltham sex corruption project, so I do hope he's not tired of variety. - I'm not even sure men get tired of variety. You can stop being prickly about it, no one's going to drag you into his bed until he's Evil enough to do it himself. I think betting fatigue is a real risk but I'm most concerned about betting fatigue among us, Security's job is objectively boring ninety percent of the time and the former Project girls can bet too. Of course, maybe only Project girls are any good at betting, but that'd be interesting in itself."

They could try running a policy prediction market on this!  Let's say, Project's chance of continuing past its second month if Keltham sleeps with at most two more girls, whichever are most useful for corruption, versus if Keltham sleeps with more girls than that.

"I really feel like if anyone has any basis for guessing either way on that they could just tell me their basis but - sure, let's try it."