"Among other reasons, if there's actually a Conspiracy you're their specialist in pointing out misleading flaws that are good enough to fool even me as fun discussion topics.  Plus there's only so much room in that conversation."  Plus also, if the Conspiracy is being improvised then something was off about Ione's initial confession.  Ione is at the top of his list for being the most likely to be a real innocent in danger / somehow not truly part of the Conspiracy.  Keltham is not going to endanger her if so - a case could be made that he should do it for the good of this world, but Keltham is at least more Evil than that.

"I'm flattered... I think?"

"Asmodia, that's your cue to explain why that's just what somebody in the Conspiracy would say."

"Ione, I'm actually taking this pretty seriously.  It's not, quite, as funny for me as it is for all of you."

"Sorry."

- with the request for fantasy books about magic, he's looking for indications mindreading exists and is relatively well-known. That's a lose condition. Pick your fantasy books with that in mind, or edit them.

"Anyways, I'm going to go eat some compact high-energy foods quickly and then be off about the next adventure, possibly, so I request that you eat with due nondangerous alacrity.  It's better to give the Conspiracy less time to prepare, if possible, now that they know what I'm doing."

He's thinking that next up is to request a sudden Ostenso excursion, which he mostly expects to be denied for valid Security reasons considering what happened last time he went outside the Forbiddance, but is worth 3 bits to Ordinary if they can do it.  Failing that he's going to... this thought is successfully shut down.

She was already 'almost done eating', by the food on her plate, and of course in reality has a Ring of Sustenance. She grabs the mostly finished plate and follows him. "Keltham it's - reasonable, that you're doing this, even if there aren't many worlds with Conspiracies it's worth there being fewer of them, and at least to my sensibilities you aren't being obnoxious about being very sure."

Ostenso expedition: allow it. Or, Security should complain and be appalled, but Snack Service if it can be persuaded to cooperate should say it'll be safe and Maillol should let Keltham overrule Security. Three bits would be precious here. They can go into the city in advance and - have the Neutral clerics on hire for the Nidal war channel a fuckton of positive energy, that's the obvious difference between a city in Cheliax and a city somewhere else, people shouldn't have injuries - and Dominate everyone Keltham actually tries to speak to.

Chaotic Good, Asmodeus, and Broom's god are not all fully aligned on this one.  The Asmodeans are on their own.

"Thanks for trying to reassure that part of me, Carissa, though I'm a bit cognitively distracted about properly emotionally engaging with much of anything right now."

Other things to look out for, while scouting Ostenso for a potential Keltham-visit: prices need to be checked against the Wall's table of known price inconsistencies between Cheliax and alter-Cheliax. Those newspapers Asmodia works so hard on keeping up to date should be for sale, and some people should have them. Everyone's going to be terrified, but this can be achieved in alter-Cheliax too if Security insists on accompanying Keltham in full visible terrifying force, which they should, if they do this at all. 

"I imagine it is easier not to  try to live in the world where I am yours and the world where I betrayed you and lied all along at the same time, and I don't need emotional attention. but it's convenient for all the Carissae in not-Conspiracy worlds that the Conspiracy Carissae are willing to go in with them on reassuring Keltham that the non-Conspiracy Carissae don't mind this and think he's doing well."

"Iiiiii did not understand that actually.  It sounds like Conspiracy is optimizing for Ordinary?"

" - the only angle from which I've been able to wrap my head around this since you first talked about worlds was imagining when I'm cooperating with the Carissae in other worlds and when I'm not. When I suggest that you anti-magic field us, I'm not cooperating with Conspiracy Carissae, because that fucks up their strategy immensely. - you should conceivably also do it to get yourself out from under any mind control affecting you. 

But I do want to cooperate with all the Kelthams, right, even the ones in Conspiracies. I want those ones to also know that Ordinary Carissa thinks they're doing the right thing, and that they aren't going to lose her by being paranoid and difficult. - if anything I guess that's more important for the Kelthams in Conspiracies to know, in case it helps them keep pushing. Now, in a sense the Ordinary Carissae cannot communicate at all with the Conspiracy Kelthams, they don't exist in any of the same worlds, but helpfully, the Conspiracy Carissae will say that line too, because they're trying to pass for Ordinary, at which point I can take comfort in knowing all the Kelthams have been told to push on." 

Asmodia, what's your estimate of Keltham's update from Snack Service not saying Ostenso's safe.

"Ah.  K.  That makes sense."  He's having trouble following this while trying to do his Conspiracy reasoning; if she's saying all that while also running the Conspiracy, he's genuinely impressed... no that's affection talking, it's obviously going to be easier for her to generate those thoughts internally than for him to follow along her communication of them.

Time for Keltham to consume food quickly!

Asmodia thinks - probably less than 1 bit - Snack Service has been pretty clear about volunteering help, but not often responding to requests for it -

If she was Keltham she'd ask Snack Service about a Conspiracy straight out and do it by thinking thoughts at it.  Which - possibly plays into the mindreading thing - but Snack Service has too many other abilities, it may not make sense to Keltham if Snack Service can't read his mind about that, she has to review everything Keltham has seen Snack Service do but she's not at her Wall - has Keltham communicated with Snack Service in code before -

AlterAsmodia is not trying to think of any of this!  She is thinking of ways to destroy the Conspiracy!  Keltham could ask her at any moment what she's thinking about!

Keltham hasn't communicated with Snack Service like that before.

And yes, Keltham is planning to request a cookie for dessert using an unspoken code that he came up with the previous night, request it very suddenly, and not think about that at all, if he can help it.  Snack Service will if allowed truthfully give Keltham the coded cookie for 'I can't answer that for complicated decision-theoretical reasons', which is mostly what Keltham expects in Ordinary and in Mindreading Conspiracy and less expects in Nonmindreading Conspiracy.

- the question of whether they're still cooperating with Snack Service at this point Carissa is going to kick to the Most High though if she has to make a snap judgment it'd be 'yes keep cooperating' (and if she has to make a snap judgment on petrifying Keltham it'll be 'not if Maillol thinks it's a blurry border of his orders', but the Most High should make that call too.)

"You have command here, Sevar.  My own estimate is under 10% that Snack Service betrays us now.  You may know better than I, and if you do, Gorthoklek is perhaps the only one who could prevent Cheliax from having a bad day about it.  I will call him, do you so command."

"Oh, right.  Keltham, you should be running Detect Magic pretty frequently this whole day.  Conspiracy obviously has ways of fooling it, I mean, I expect so does Ordinary upper Security secretly, but it might make the Conspiracy's lives harder in all sorts of little ways."

- Carissa feels like Snack Service is not going to betray them by suddenly attacking everybody, that's not at all what the tropes say would happen here. 

...how sure is she that tropes are real. A week ago she was pretty sure they weren't, but now, at the last minute, Keltham has a last doubt - and Abrogail and the Most High are clearly reasoning as if the tropes are obviously real, and have more information than Carissa does -

(Her newfound Intelligence wants to go chasing down all the implications of the Most High and Abrogail disagreeing with her about how likely tropes are to be real, starting with whether someone is pregnant by Keltham and ending with whether she's a secret cleric somehow. Her newfound Wisdom notes that she's already trying to simultaneously run two Carissae and should probably not add having epiphanies of no immediate relevance to the to-do list, and that this is one of the ways intelligence enhancement is not obviously good in slaves, if your starting point is as squishy as a human. Thankfully the Wisdom actually gives her the skill to set those trains of thought aside neatly, flagged for later, not forgotten.)

"You could have some five-year-olds brought in to talk to you, in an antimagic field so no one could feed them lines, not that I think feeding five-year-olds lines even works very well but the Conspiracy might have mind control that'd make it work."

"Conspiracy can probably do that if they get to pick the five-year-old and brief them, it'd have to be via scry into a city somewhere that Keltham could pick one - does scry work through antimagic field?"

"Can't scry into the antimagic field but I can't think why you couldn't position the scry so it can see, in an entirely nonmagical way, the goings-on in the antimagic field? I'm not actually sure that Conspiracy can successfully brief five year olds even if they pick them, five year olds are terrible liars."

"I'd have multiple trained five-year-olds ready to go if I was that sort of person and running the Conspiracy."

She doesn't.  And - doesn't actually regret that.  One of the real Asmodeans needed to think of that if they wanted it thought of.