Maillol more falls than kneels.  He's got some trauma.

"I am well capable of preventing Iomedae from seeing into one of our Lord's temples."

"I cannot interrogate this one or report on her to you.  That is outside my limited remit in this place, if it is not a matter of slaying mortals to prevent the spread of a dangerous idea from beyond.  But I can protect her interrogation from enemy eyes."

"And slay her after, I suppose, if that Caydenspawn seems to believe you should not do that.  It has not visibly betrayed our Lord as yet, and the logic is obvious enough for how that deed might hamper your corruption of Keltham, if you must face him knowing that you yourself slew one of his."

That doesn't sound quite right, as an articulation of why it'd interfere between Carissa and Keltham. It feels like something that'd stand between them even if overall Keltham came around on Evil. She is not going to argue the point with Gorthoklek. 

"Can you monitor the interrogator, also, and kill them if that needs doing?" Otherwise I am deeply unsure who to assign that job.

"Yes."

"Make no wasteful haste about this matter, but do not dawdle about it either.  My time is valuable."

"Right. I think - not Abarco. The idiot Security who fucked this up in the first place, can question her, see if we get any more than we did from the original mindread. And then if he survives that intact, but doesn't learn much, we can send in Abarco."

She does not want to make any motions towards not kneeling but she'll get a message off to this effect.

Peranza opens her eyes, chained in an Asmodean temple, facing one of the newer and lesser Security set to monitor the likes of herself.

She is not as wise now not as intelligent, but she remembers who she now is -

- remembers what she did, and it's only now, in fact, that the actual thought occurs to her of what she did -

- and all the screaming horror and terror in her gets crushed down in sheer reflex, because that's what she does all the time -

- it's probably what Miyalsvor would do, there must be some perfectly reasonable reason that she made the right decision, she was smart then, it's probably because ilani don't yield to threats so that must be the right way to be -

- what's done is done she has to play this out has to hope because she literally can't get any more fucked -

- but she is an ilani, now, who dares to grasp and use their techniques.  The minds around her are lesser ones, they do not know themselves, dare not know themselves as she knows them, the flaws in them.  All the more convenient if they're reading her mind, that means they'll know that she speaks true.

She looks at the Security before her and reasons in a flash, because there's no time and maybe no safety in reasoning in more detail than that; she guesses, from the absence of terrorizing in his demeanor that would be present if this one was here to terrorize her and hadn't recently screwed up, that this one is the one who screwed up.  It's not a certainty, but an ilani thinks in probabilities even when they're not thinking in numbers -

"You're probably due for quite a lot of punishment, for letting me do that," Peranza says out loud.  "You do not, in fact, need to let them hurt you.  It is not in fact the correct decision for you, to tolerate that.  Asmodeus is not something that any human being should ever serve, you have your own will, your own wants, and Civilization can make you a better offer.  You, anyone who's listening.  Come with me, take me and Keltham from this place, and after a long life filled with beauty and all the humanity that was denied you, you can be a statue for a time.  Until Civilization in this world has brought Hell to heel, as it will do.  As I know, because I dare to think, now, and use the Law your superiors are too scared to use, because they know they can't handle the truth."

"Feel free to truthspell me about any of that, or read my mind."

" - is that really what you thought?" he says. "That you'd escape, that Keltham will leave, that you'll never have to go to Hell? Because - you know, honestly, I am going to be embarrassed on your behalf, putting that in the report of why you defected. It's very, very delusional. It can be fixed in everyone else by just telling them - truthfully - that they're not going to escape, and Keltham's not going to turn on the Project, not on his precious riches and his precious girls he can hurt and his precious sense that he picked the right side to hand the keys to world domination."

She openly laughs.  No Bluff, it's real.

"If that was true, they'd just tell him now.  False, and know that you will not be able to deceive an ilani."

"Or if you actually believe that, read my mind or truthspell me so you know how honest I am in fact being, see that I know, when I say that Keltham will turn on the Project the moment he learns.  Giving up his sense that he picked the right side?  He won't even hesitate.  He taught us that in his class, were you not there that day?  The art of just saying oops and getting it over with?"

"Isn't it wonderful?  There's an incredibly powerful new form of thought that no Asmodean can wield and remain Asmodean.  It's just false that it's in our best interest to serve a horrible god and go to Hell and get tortured.  It's just false that we don't have any better options.  Everyone in Lastwall and in Osirion will be able to learn it with no problems."

"Cheliax is doomed.  Keltham himself couldn't hand them the keys to world domination if he tried, and he is trying, not knowing that it's impossible; because, it turns out, this is what happens when somebody actually does grasp those keys."

"You are not on the winning side."

"But you could be."

"Or hurt me, and my Civilization will come for you even in Hell, to avenge me.  Think on that, if you yield to threats.  And if you don't, then what are you even doing here?  Be more afraid of rising Civilization than falling Hell, or throw aside all your fears and join us; it's the right decision either way."

"No one else who Keltham's put through his extra special Keeper training seems to be having any trouble. Just you. Why'd you see it when they didn't?"

She smiles again.  "Somebody had to be first, that's all."

"I don't buy it. I'm not interested in learning all the dath ilan stuff, I've been tuning half of it out, but I've picked up some things and I don't buy that you think you defected to the winning side. Should I put it in a dath ilani kind of way? Some Peranzas are stuck in a world where Iomedae's a poser, and her countries are at their limits holding onto the Worldwound and could spare no one for a war with Cheliax even if they thought it was as urgent as that, and could spare only a few units if they thought it was more important than that. And where Abadar is down to negotiate with us so Osirion won't stand in our way, or where they try and we flatten them. Cheliax is making spellsilver much much cheaper than anyone else, as you kindly tried to tell Iomedae, though it doesn't look like it worked. The headband assembly line is, what, a few weeks from working, and then Sevar can do the same thing for items with military applications.

And those are the things I happen to know about from following the reject whores who signed up for special Keeper training; I don't think they're all the real Project has going. 

Some Peranzas - most Peranzas, I'd argue, but let's go with 'some Peranzas' - live in a world where Hell's going to win, and they're going to spend the rest of eternity paying for that one try at letting Good know what's coming. And you have no idea how Cheliax and Osirion stack up militarily, or how many soldiers Iomedae commands, or whether the secret thing that made the war with Nidal go so fast for us will be replicated, so there's no way you sized up some facts you knew and decided you were on the winning side. 

I don't know why you did it, but that's not why."

"You've got one deceived ilani showing you a few simple tricks they teach to nine-year-olds.  Because he hasn't figured out the lie, yet, as he inevitably will once he has enough evidence.  He may get it the morning I don't show up for class."

"Osirion and Lastwall will have thousands of ilani."

"You weren't around back when Keltham showed us the results.  They have a Radiance device that can lift things into space with light alone, that could burn clear through any castle in Golarion in seconds from ten miles away, and that wasn't even a weapon to them."

"Cheliax won't have that.  Keltham himself doesn't know how to make it.  That takes thousands of ilani working together, to deduce and then build, and that's something Cheliax can never, ever have."

"There will not be a war with Cheliax.  There will be a rescue operation on Cheliax."

"Again, you did not think through any of that before you decided to try to get Iomedae's attention, and you do not know a bunch of facts that are relevant to whether it's true, like, can we just crush them both tomorrow before they get the chance to benefit from any of that. So what were you actually thinking."

"Why are you acting like you need me to say it in order for you to know?  If you don't have Detect Thoughts prepped, can I politely suggest that you go requisition a scroll or a staff of it?  I'm sure Stores has some, and this will go better if you know I'm being honest."

"No one's taking suggestions of any kind from the crazy bitch who was the only person on Project Lawful who couldn't take it.

You know why this happened to you, right? It's because after Pilar had her breakdown about how to reconcile Asmodeanism and being dath ilani her big revelation was that she'd been too unwilling to be cruel, so she told Sevar that the rest of you should be put through this. 

I kinda figure, some'll break like you, some'll break like her."

What an interesting thing for 'cruelty' to suggest.  Was Snack Service possibly involved?  Thanks for that valuable information.

Peranza doesn't say that part out loud.  If this annoying idiot insists on not reading her mind, he can just get to not hear about it, then.

"So it takes slightly more Law to finish breaking someone who literally came back from Elysium.  Who now doesn't dare to go on learning, until Keltham has tried to teach some more disposable subjects, in the hopes that one of those somehow won't break, so Pilar Pineda, pet of Aspexia Rugatonn, can learn from them how she can be an ilani safely."

"It's not even slightly going to work.  I know, now.  But I suppose you'll have to rely on Sense Motive to believe me about that, if you don't have Detect Thoughts or a truthspell."

"Have you got any arguments for why it isn't going to work that aren't appeals to military information you don't have."

"This would in fact be easier to explain if you'd tried to pick up the material on ilanism while it was being taught."

"You're coming at this from the wrong angle.  You have no idea what an ilani can deduce.  That thing Keltham does, that you should've been warned about by Asmodia, where you say something that sounds ordinary and innocent to you, and Keltham makes some far-reaching deduction using Laws you don't understand?"

"Not only can I do it too, now, but I realized that I'd been doing a lot of it already.  Asmodeans just train themselves not to know they're doing it, which is how I was able to know what I knew right away, without taking a lot of extra time to think."

"For example.  Among the military information you think I don't have - I'd ask how you think you even know what information I have, but you'd have to be an ilani to realize why 'how do I even know that' is an important question - is a conversation between Sevar and the Queen of Cheliax, back when the Queen and the Most High were taking tea with the rest of us, a couple of days after Keltham made his hiring decisions.  Asmodia asked if she could have female wizard students from outside Cheliax to examine, kidnapped ones.  Sevar mentioned that Felandriel Morgethai's university was the reason we don't own Andoran, and that the Magesterium in Absalom is the reason nobody's ever conquered it."

"You aren't allowed to think about what that implies about the relative military strength of Cheliax."

"Or rather, you're not allowed to think of it in words.  A part of yourself that you can't see, but an ilani can, reads ahead to what the results would be if you did think about it, and it warns off the part of yourself exposed to Detect Thoughts from thinking anything that sounds disloyal.  But that part of you has to know what you would deduce to warn you off from that."

"If I say, now, that all the students at Morgethai's university and Absalom's Magesterium will have a far easier time of picking up everything Keltham's trying to teach, because they're not afraid of seeing truths like that, some part of you is flinching right now.  And for that part of yourself to know to flinch, it must already know what you'd deduce if you let yourself look."

"That's why I was able to know immediately what the real truth of the matter was, as soon as I stopped not looking there.  My mind had already calculated it."

"And now that I've said that much to you, you will, inevitably, start to see it yourself at some point, which is why they picked a disposable low-ranking Security officer for this interview instead of putting Abarco on it.  You're definitely going to need to flee Cheliax at some point.  That part is inevitable.  Part of you already knows that, which is why you can feel yourself flinching away from thinking of it right now."

"You're making a pretty compelling case that if your 'deductions' are true and not just 'making random assumptions and declaring them dath ilani' we'd better kill Keltham as soon as we have to let him go, which I assume the people in charge of that have already thought about. I don't buy that you calculated the real and inevitable truth instead of just leaping to some random convenient conclusions, though. But I believe you believe you did, which is disappointing. I'll have to report that you really just delusionally convinced yourself everyone is as weak as you, Cheliax is doomed, Keltham'll build an ilani Civilization spanning all our neighbors and we'll for some reason not be able to do anything about that including letting the demons eat them like will totally happen if we redeploy our forces, and...

....actually, that's insufficient? Even if all that happens, you'll be in Hell being tortured forever. Is it that much of a consolation prize to imagine the side you switched to at the last minute conquered the country you betrayed?"

"It's hard for me to figure out how much of this apparent illogic is due to you actually believing it, or due to you thinking that somebody else might be watching.  If anybody is watching, they're also disposable and thinking or rather not-thinking the same things you are right now, and both of you should Cooperate with each other on that multiagent cooperation-defection dilemma."

"If you actually believe that, then let's start to play the game ilani do.  Tell me your probability that I can point out an enormous gaping flaw in your logic about killing Keltham, large enough that even you won't put up much of a fight about it once I say it.  Ten percent?  Ninety percent?  Do you already know you're wrong?"

"I already know you're going to declare I'm wrong and any ilani would see it, but your reasoning is going to be a mishmash of random shit that you declare is all secretly related. It's a very powerful style of thinking, and also it's basically nonsense."

"Give me a probability that I'm just right and you don't have a good rejoinder, as will be acknowledged by your changing the subject."

"Zero."

"Then you'd bet at odds of infinity to nothing against me?  All right, let's form a compact then; if in your own judgment you don't have a good rejoinder, you must do your best to help us escape together.  If in my own true judgment you win the argument, I'll tell you what you need to know.  I so swear if you do."

"You know why I actually don't think everyone's going to fall apart? Because you have to take the ilani shit - a specific kind of seriously. Not just 'hey, this is a useful way of coming up with ideas' or 'this is a useful way of checking ideas you came up with', but 'this is the ONLY TRUTH and any reasoning that makes sense from an ilani angle is infallible and I should follow it right off a cliff'. Maybe some particularly worthless teenage girls who've never tried to do real things in the real world fall apart on contact with that, but I think anyone who has actually tried to get anything done will go 'no, thanks, I appreciate the new set of ideas, I will use them alongside all my existing ideas and not follow them off any cliffs'. 

So no. Swearing to things on the basis of an argument about them is obviously following ilanism off the insanest possible cliff and is something that you'd have to be incredibly worthless to be vulnerable to."