"- wow," she says quietly as soon as she sees Keltham's face. " - what - do you want -"

Grab her and haul her in.

Rip off the headband.

- Carissa makes a small horrified sound and then lunges bodily at Ione. She's clumsy; if you had absolutely no context on any of this you might think she was on drugs, or possibly had rabies. 

Without Bull's Strength some of his martial options become more limited, have to be done in particular ways.  Grab Carissa's right arm, bring up his fist in a powerful blow to break her right elbow, to make it harder for her to draw and use her dagger.  Then put Carissa into a chokehold that Security insisted on training Keltham in, as an anti-spellcaster technique.  Were they planning this fake escape that far back?

(...why is he playing along, to this extent... because maybe he can turn it real, or, real enough to take Carissa with him when he actually leaves...)

She doesn't actually fight him, though she does keep trying to maul Ione. 

Somehow that makes it hurt worse.  Some deep part of him doesn't believe in anything that's in words words words, it just sees him beating up Carissa who isn't fighting back.

Dath ilan hopes most of its people don't experience this stress level at any point in their lives.  But always some people do, and when that time comes for them, their ability to continue operating seems like a key figure of merit for whether dath ilan has made its people stronger, or weaker, in the end.

Keltham has been shaped to continue even now; Keltham's society has shaped itself to accomplish that quality of the people within.

"Ione.  Earrings.  Left pocket last time I saw her put them in there."

At some point he's going to find whoever planned out this particular pantomime, and made him do this to Carissa -

- possibly Carissa, now that he thinks about it -

- or were all her lines, everything she was, scripted by that same scriptor -

She'll look for them and not say anything.  Still there?

Still there. She finished them, while they were waiting for Keltham to realize the truth. 

She will attempt to apply the earrings to Sevar... how easy are these earrings to apply to somebody who is (possibly pretending to be) not cooperative?

Well, obviously, they were designed to be possible to put on an uncooperative person should that seem like fun. 

"Equestrian pumpkins.  Take no voluntary action."

Channel healing.

"What's the plan on Asmodia?"

"Several possibilities but the one I was betting on was that you've still got that magic item you used to cancel Sevar's magic, and you brought it along with you into this place along with all of your unbanked money.  Fallback, that Sevar has a spell or item that makes Asmodia safe to take with.  Worst case is killing her and taking along her body so we can resurrect her at the destination."

"If you predicted I had the Curse of Magic Negation item, why did you just make me break Carissa's - because I didn't prep Remove Curse and we need Carissa's magic to Teleport, never mind."

One may now see Asmodia approaching the Rope Trick.

He'll get out the rod of Curse of Magic Negation, which, yes, he's got with him along with all of his platinum pieces.

Asmodia pokes her head into the Rope Trick and -

"Sorry I'm late, had to get my spellbook and my money first for obvious reasons."

"Sure.  Whatever.  Come on in."  He'll lend Asmodia a hand to pull her up.

He's glad he doesn't have to hurt Asmodia, in this skit.  They didn't have that kind of relationship.  Well.  If they had any kind of relationship, it wasn't that one.

"Keltham -"

"Asmodia, why would you actually be defecting just like that, Hell owns your soul."

"Not even slightly the kind of problem that'd stop an ilani.  Worst case, I get a Plane Shift to Abaddon at the end of my life, and gamble on ending up somewhere else just like Keltham did."

"The part where we're still in Cheliax surrounded by Security is more of a problem.  Is there a plan for that?"

"All of us against one Security.  Sevar uses his Teleport scroll."