...though they're going to have to think up some policy prediction market that Keltham is allowed to know about, too, so that the researchers don't seem anomalously familiar with policy prediction markets later.

Carissa has learned not to argue with Asmodia when she says things like that even though it doesn't seem strictly necessary to her. "Could set up a public one on whether, if Keltham proceeds at full speed, some people will have breakdowns about realizing they're made of lies? - that looks different in alter Cheliax but we should probably figure out what it does look like in alter Cheliax, now that we've warned him about it."

Asmodia does NOT want to try to figure out what FAKE BETTING PATTERNS on this vital alter-Cheliax issue would look like until she knows what NORMAL betting patterns look like.

Sure. It's the obvious thing Keltham'll want information on, though, so they'd better get some harmless markets about how to approach spellsilver in first.

For policy prediction markets, Keltham will want issues where it's not clear what policy will be taken - you can't bet any more on what happens if Keltham proceeds slowly, they already decided to be fast - unless Sevar is worried that Keltham will say he's reconsidering and run a policy market again -

Um, sure, they can ask Keltham for two different things he's considering doing about spellsilver so they can practice running a policy market about it.

When are the new researchers being brought in, by the by?  Asmodia is looking forwards to some parts of that.

Tonight, for secret orientation; the day after will be their apparent arrival as far as Keltham knows.

They're being introduced to Keltham TOMORROW?  Overnight is a relatively short schedule for Asmodia to finish drilling everyone on real/alter differences.  Did anyone already tell Keltham that they were going to arrive tomorrow?  Asmodia needs to drill them on alterCheliax facts.  Asmodia needs to make sure they're in exactly the right alternate universe before Keltham meets them.  Asmodia needs to make sure that they understand the basic Lawful principle that Keltham uses to accumulate events that are at all noticeably less probable or more probable in Ordinary versus Conspiracy worlds, and that even when Keltham sees something unlikely within Conspiracy as he currently imagines it, that narrows down the possible Conspiracies he could be inside.

 Keltham has not been told when they're arriving and if her professional recommendation is that it wait longer it can wait longer. They have in principle been briefed on all that, but Carissa bets they don't in fact understand it.

Then Asmodia will SLIGHTLY RELAX because at least she will not be under DEADLY TIME PRESSURE on this particular occasion.

...are the newcomers under the lighter punishment regimen immediately, or should Asmodia light them up when they fuck up in alterCheliax drills?

Normal punishments at least until they're introduced to Keltham; she doesn't want their first introduction to Project Lawful to simultaneously be that it's much more important than anything they've done before and that they won't be seriously punished for failure.

...good.  They should fear making a mess on her wall.

(Hopefully Asmodia can get that part done before she knows any of them well enough to start slightly caring about them.)

And if they can't handle themselves under pressure better for that to come to light before they meet Keltham.

PL-timestamp:  Day 17 (13) / Still Nighttime

"Evening, newcomers.  My name is Asmodia.  Just Asmodia.  I have no family worth mentioning, and don't come from anywhere important enough that I'd want to adopt that as a second name.  Eighteen days ago I was one of the top students at Ostenso wizard academy, second-circle, and headed to the Worldwound shortly."

"You, perhaps, are a Worldwound veteran, a cleric of Asmodeus, or the heiress of a county."

"None of that matters to your standing in Project Lawful.  Here, only three people in this fortress can override my orders to you, and they are Ferrer Maillol, fifth-circle priest of Asmodeus, Jacint Subirachs, seventh-circle priest of Asmodeus, and Carissa Sevar, also known in certain circles as the Chosen of Asmodeus.  Of those three, the only one who's actually going to override me is Carissa Sevar, because she is the only one of those three who understands my job well enough to tell me I'm fucking it up."

"You see that wall behind me, with the writing in green, orange, red, purple, and one sentence in black?  That's my fucking wall.  It's my life and it's also the life or death of Project Lawful.  Written on that wall are the most important things Keltham knows about the alternate world of alterCheliax that we're creating for him.  Green is for important facts that are true in both realCheliax and alterCheliax.  Orange is for things true only of alterCheliax that I currently believe we're fairly safe on.  Red is where Keltham is asking questions, where he thinks something might be wrong, or where I think he might decide something wrong's later.  Purple sentences are places where we haven't told any particular lies, but if Keltham thinks too much in that direction we still lose, and so nobody is to prompt his thoughts there if possible - Keltham dying in order to meet his god, for example."

"Black is inconsistency, places where Keltham has been exposed to information that destroys our lie if he looks in the right place, thinks in the right direction.  There's one sentence written there in black, we think we got away with it, if Keltham hasn't spotted the moon's wrong phase by now he's almost certainly never going to, and that sentence in black bought us days of rest and recovery and background work and ability to catch our breath that we all desperately needed."

"You know why the person who's responsible for that black sentence got away with it?  Because she's the Queen of Cheliax.  If you are responsible for a black sentence going up on my wall you will not get away with it."

"You will also not have a good day if you're responsible for a red sentence going up.  You will have a check-in with me every single time I write an orange sentence on there, that wasn't there before, that I or Carissa Sevar did not tell you to put there.  You will possibly have a chat with me if there's a new green sentence on there I end up unhappy about, because every fact like that can no longer be modified or contradicted now that we've told Keltham about them.  Unfortunately we can't all just shut up around Keltham either, because he would notice that.  That's not something that happens in alterCheliax, see.  Any time your alter-self from alterCheliax would tell Keltham something, you're going to have to tell him something.  If hesitating in alterCheliax would be improbable, you will not have time to request and receive orders and you will need to make something up.  Fun, isn't it?  If you want to fucking survive, if you don't want your soul torn apart in Hell after your death, you will come to me for help before you get into trouble."

"Is your pride offended, that I'm talking to you like this?  You think you're above me, and that I'm some petty thing assigned a petty job who's gone mad with the petty power that implies?  Then you haven't understood a copper's worth of what Project Lawful is about.  My soul is the property of a Count of Hell, last that Cheliax heard of it, and the reason for that is that Barons of Hell can't afford me.  You think you could summon a Count of Hell to buy your soul, because you're heiress of a county, because you're a Worldwound veteran?  They'd laugh at you and then destroy you.  Hell doesn't care for your petty mortal accomplishments.  Neither does Project Lawful."

"My soul got sold before anybody including Hell realized how valuable it was going to turn out to be.  Now you're going to have to sell an option on your soul to Carissa Sevar before we start making you valuable, enabling her to buy back your soul for not much more than the trivial pittance you'll sell it for, because otherwise Hell cannot afford to buy you without bankrupting their ability to pay out for other souls in Golarion.  As happens to be important for the government of Cheliax to continue operating."

"That insane price, that incredible value to Hell, reflects what Project Lawful is going to make of you.  What Project Lawful has started to make of me, though I'm still a work in progress.  It comes from learning the Law, mostly from Keltham, but also from me, because I'm the other one besides Keltham who can and will teach it to you.  Your county, your service at the Worldwound, the soul markets in Dis don't care shit.  They care that you might be able to master what gets taught here.  Period.  And in that, there is no mortal of Golarion who is my peer except Carissa Sevar, and only Keltham out of dath ilan above us both."

"You hate me?  You're thinking about how to get rid of me?  Pray to Asmodeus that you fail.  There's a note on my Security file from Aspexia Rugatonn saying that anybody who manages to lose my services to Cheliax is going to have an incredibly bad time, which, if you're wondering, is because Aspexia Rugatonn has required of me that I train her successor.  And even that fate would be a pleasant one compared to what Abrogail Thrune will do to you, in person, followed by speculators in Dis's markets spectacularly angry about lost investments, if you fuck up my job."

"It will probably occur to you, at some point or another, that I seem to be insane.  I'm not going to bother telling you that, if you had my job, you'd go insane too.  You wouldn't.  You are the cream and elite of Cheliax.  You'd approach everything in a calm and professional manner, and then you'd fucking fail.  In the unlikely event you could actually do my job, yes, you would also be insane."

"I've never had much faith inside me, but I like to think that, somewhere out there, there is a goddess in much the same position I am, who has to maintain the real universe against all the fools trying to muck it up.  And if so, I have a feeling, somehow, that whoever that goddess is, she doesn't get much support from Pharasma."

"The universe I maintain was envisioned and created by Carissa Sevar.  She is not in the Boneyard.  She will not judge you after you die.  She is here, judging you now."

"Evening, newcomers.  Welcome to Project Lawful, fresh meat.  My name is Asmodia, and I'm going to annoy the shit out of you any time you try to have any fun with this.  And you're going to suck it up and take that, because, unlike Pharasma, Sevar is on her fucking job."

"And Sevar doesn't like it when anyone gets in the way of my job."

"I've got an even shittier job than that goddess does, in a lot of ways, but at least I've got that."

"To the left of me we see Ione Sala, heretic and betrayer of Asmodeus and now oracle of Nethys - that part is true only in realCheliax - or in alterCheliax that weird adorable girl touched by Nethys - false, orange - who borrows books from the Ostenso academy library inside a Forbiddance - green.  You don't pick on her for any of that, because it presently looks like Nethys is maybe possibly in with Asmodeus on this - Ione gave us thirty seconds of warning about Nidal's assault on the last Project site and plausibly saved the entire thing.  Your current orders are not to fuck with her."

"In alterCheliax, Ione is the Project's Nethysian Safety Officer, charged by Keltham to make sure we don't hurt ourselves or go insane.  She does much the same thing in realCheliax.  She has zero actual Project authority.  If she gives you a warning, you should probably listen to her even if she's being smug about it."

"Ione herself will tell you that she is Chosen and Blessed of Nethys.  She'll also tell you that Nethys is smuggest of the gods, and that it's heresy to suggest that anything cannot or should not explode.  If any of you know actual Nethysian theology you are not allowed to tell her about it, because that, apparently, would be even worse."

"To the right of me we see Pilar Pineda, by far the most loyal person to Asmodeus of anyone here, whose soul got misdirected to Elysium and who came back to Cheliax willingly, trusted of Aspexia Rugatonn, probably going to be the only sane person left after everybody else on this Project goes mad.  Heard any rumors about how Project Lawful supposedly cleansed Egorian of spies?  That was Pilar.  She did it over the course of a day while the rest of us were taking a break."

"Pilar is the oracle of Cayden Cailean.  Her oracular curse goes by the name of Snack Service and delivers us cookies, cake, and apparently good advice about how to corrupt Keltham to Asmodeanism."

"I wish to Pharasma I was joking about any of that, but I'm not."

"Here we have Meritxell.  Meritxell was at the top of our year in Ostenso.  Meritxell is the most normal person who has ever fucked Keltham.  I would personally bet on Meritxell being the second-to-last person on this Project to go insane."

"Gregoria, Peranza, Tonia are the next most normal survivors of Project Lawful.  They probably have some other personality traits but I can't be arsed to remember what they are right now.  All of them have prices in Dis that would buy literally one hundred of you."

"Yaisa, failed Project Lawful girl.  Now Keltham's full-time personal whore, except that around him we call her a sex worker.  She's played a minor part in corrupting Keltham.  If we pull any of this off and it looks like Yaisa was at all important to the process, she'll end up a Duchess somewhere after the new Cheliax conquers Golarion, as will be our standard reward for moderately good service, according to the Queen."

"Not present are Paxti, Pela, and Jacme, failed Project Lawful girls.  They're still around the fortress and Keltham may check in on them sometimes.  Don't fuck with them either, because I say so is fucking why.  If you do anything that wouldn't have happened to them in alterCheliax, which changes them or their attitude in ways it wouldn't have changed in alterCheliax, I'm the one who cleans up your fucking mess.  Part of that process will be my making sure you don't create future messes."

"Now, I'll turn you over to Carissa Sevar, Worldwound veteran, fourth-circle wizard in magical capacity but with spellcraft to match seventh, the first person who spoke to Keltham in Golarion, first of what became known as the Project Lawful girls, now commander of Project Lawful, lover of Keltham, lover also of Abrogail Thrune, sometimes called Chosen of Asmodeus.  Sevar isn't allowed to sell her soul to Hell yet, for some still-unknown reason, but the last time she tried she asked for permanent arcane sight, permanent Tongues, ten pounds of spellsilver, and three Wishes.  The devil they summoned said not yet but tried to lock in that price for future occasions."

"Welcome to Project fucking Lawful, you poor fuckers.  I haven't even gotten to the really weird parts.  Our Nethysian Sanity Officer warned us that we needed to let the lesser weirdness sink in for a while, before we tried to tell you about the 'tropes'."

"Anyways, Carissa Sevar.  The Chosen of Asmodeus doesn't usually stand on ceremony, but on this particular occasion, I'd suggest that you fucking kneel."

Asmodia walks a few feet to the side, and kneels herself, along with everyone else present.  With Eagle's Splendour still burning in her, she manages to make the motion look as graceful as it should be.

"The world that Keltham comes from is richer and more sophisticated than ours, richer and more sophisticated than Hell, likely richer and more sophisticated than anywhere known to the greatest powers of our world.

The purpose of Project Lawful is to learn the engineering knowledge they possess, to make Cheliax wealthy and competent to conquer the rest of the world, and to learn the Law they possess, to improve on the teaching of devils in Hell and perhaps on the teaching of mortals so that more of them possess the nature to become powerful devils.

Keltham, you've been briefed, is a Lawful Neutral cleric of Abadar. He desires to trade openly and honestly with all who will deal honestly with him. He wants to ensure that the knowledge he has of dath ilan benefits everyone in Golarion, not because he thinks of himself as Good in his own right but because he got that knowledge free from dath ilan, and feels obliged to spend it how they would see fit, were they here. Dath ilan is unbearably Lawful Good, having engineered their society in that direction with every tool you might think of plus some you did not know were possible, like heritage-optimization. This is what makes alter-Cheliax necessary; the real Cheliax, Keltham would not trade with, and he'd kill himself and go to Osirion if he came to consider it likely he is being deceived. 

Alter-Cheliax is a harder problem than you think, which is why Asmodia has absolute license to correct and train you in inhabiting it. If Cheliax were ruled by Abadar, how much would fifth-circle wizards be paid? You don't know? Keltham wants to know right now, what's your guess? It'd be strange to not have a guess. You might think your guess can't be wrong; after all, nowhere is Cheliax ruled by Abadar, and so it's the sort of thing that can't be known except maybe somehow to Nethys. But your guess can be inconsistent, with what Keltham understands of the productive economic contributions of wizards, and their scarcity, and who pays them, and how many Security are assigned to Project Lawful. If your number is too low then the salaries Keltham has been quoted for the project don't make any sense and teleportation ought to be more accessible and it's more suspicious that there isn't immigration to Cheliax from Osirion or Taldor. If your number is too high, then the logistics of staffing the Worldwound don't make any sense and the expected revenue from spellsilver improvements ought to be a lot higher. 

Why not just give him the real number? Because in Cheliax fifth-circle wizards needs must have sold their soul, and that wouldn't be true in alter-Cheliax, and it changes the numbers.

Everything is like this. The core art that dath ilan teaches is the art of seeing all the world as a single, interconnected web, every strand of which tugs directly or indirectly on every other strand. Dath ilani are trained in seeing how a tug on one thing - one price, one technology, one number quoted in one book - ought to imply things far across the web about Governance and intelligence distributions and metal refining. There are no safe lies to Keltham because we do not know all the content of the lies we're telling, and there are no safe truths because truth is entangled with the fact that Cheliax is run by Asmodeus and not by Abadar. 

Dath ilan is probably run by an Evil conspiracy of its own, of course. But we cannot contact them, and if we could they'd crush us utterly and repurpose us to their own ends whatever they are."

"There are a number of errors I anticipate from new additions to this project. One is reasoning too much about why all of the absurd scary things you've been told are less absurd, or less scary, and should not transform all your thinking quite as much as they might look like they should. You might reason, for example, that every secret project in Cheliax probably had ambitions of world domination, that the stakes are probably not quite as high as that, that Hell might tell us falsely of our great value, that nothing you hear is ever really true and so nothing I say should really sway you all that far from whatever posture you walked in with. 

The last time I spoke of the unique importance of this project, and the unimaginable rewards for successful service, Her Majesty arrived to confirm that the project was as important as claimed, and the rewards as real. It is my sincere hope that we will not need to repeatedly waste her time because no one can believe the stakes are real without her personal attention. You will have to unlearn the habit of not believing things; I will assist you, in that, by not saying them unless they are true. Lies are the poor substitute that Cheliax uses on people too stupid to make correct inferences from the truth anyway, employed by people themselves too stupid to think of truth and lies as fundamentally different things. On Project Lawful we are attempting to make you competent to make correct inferences from the truth, and that requires telling it.

You may have heard that there is a lot of heresy on Project Lawful. There is more than you thought, even after Asmodia just introduced you to our resident Nethysian and our resident cursed by Cayden Cailean. The core heresy of Project Lawful is this: the project is premised on the idea that some people can think true things, unabashed, untrained in hiding from all their thoughts with frightening implications, possessed with real competence at thinking, and still be Asmodeans. That means that you are going to have to try thinking, and some of your thoughts will be heresy, and you will have to keep thinking instead of stopping.

This is definitely going to destroy some of you. Those more pessimistic than I think it will destroy all of us in the end except Pilar. Even if it is so that people can think true things and still be Asmodeans, no one has yet tried to construct an Asmodeanism made up entirely of true things, and you'll find yourself believing a bunch of nonsense that doesn't hold together, and then some of you will panic and throw it out. I'm pretty sure there is a beautiful consistent comprehensible truth on the other side, and I am perhaps Chosen by Asmodeus for this work, and I still sometimes find myself lost in what are definitely heresies, in Asmodeus's sight.

The important thing is to keep in mind that errors, while they will be consistently corrected, are only catastrophic if they happen in Keltham's view. Your minds are being constantly read, your loyalty is being closely monitored, but your punishments will be tailored narrowly towards improving your performance, so long as your errors are not deliberate betrayals. You are valuable; I will soon own the rights to your souls; I want you to be stronger and better. I want you to be the best of Cheliax and to grow into the best of Hell."