Keltham's next task, before his renewed Prestidigitation fades and he forgets her name, is to go try setting up initial wizard lessons for Mirna.

She'll presumably want day lessons, six days a week, bring your own lunch, for the next four months; that's what the price covers. That won't get most int-14 people to a reliable mastery of cantrips, if they're starting without any math or magic background, but it'll get some there, and get others far enough they can keep practicing on their own. If she's not literate she'll need to learn to read first.

...Keltham supposes he can imagine wizard lessons taking that long, if you don't have any Chelish Security officers overlaying illusions of what they can see with soul-bought Arcane Sight, and you only know Golarion's concept of early wizard math, and you've never played any mathy video games or done any computer programming, and your INT is 14.

How much do reading lessons cost?

Not much by comparison; four gold will cover a month, and a bright student ought to pick it up in three.

...here's sixteen gold, and if Mirna doesn't need it, educate someone else who does.

(Three months for an adult to learn how to read... that's what happens when your written language isn't a pointwise isomorph of your spoken language's sounds, Keltham supposes, but it may also illustrate some fundamental problem with their process for teaching things.)

They'll do that. The classes are popular, there'll be a taker even if this particular woman isn't one. 

"Fe-Anar, I'm confused about how Osirion doesn't think it's worth 12gp to educate INT 14s to read and then another 50gp to get them started on wizard lessons.  It seems like the sort of thing that'd get paid back in greater tax revenue later, if Osirion got a loan to make that investment now, unless interest rates are way higher than Cheliax let me know about."

"I imagine usually their households wouldn't be able to spare them for several months. We run schools for boys but a lot of parents don't send them because they need their boys at home for work, and that's much younger kids whose work is much less valuable."

"All right.  I'll take that as a general sign that things are in an awful equilibrium rather than Osirion's government being stupid."

"And I'm not going to try to roll any solutions to it, because in a short while they'll have to refigure the system anyways to account for people getting loaned temporary +4 intelligence headbands while they're learning" or the larger system containing this one will have been destroyed.

Next up, there's a topic Keltham wants to look into while he's in Nethys's library.

Ancient gods.  Where'd they come from, according to the library of the temple of the god of knowledge.  Does eg Sarenrae really care about human beings, or are they just a kind of strange object in Its utility function.  Are any of the ancient gods known to really care about human beings the way that human beings care about each other, and not just as a kind of thing that can be configured to generate more utility in many different ways, some of which the humans enjoy more than others.

Does Abadar - seem to ever care, at all, about people, as something other than trading partners?

Are there any hints about the once-human gods being forced into subservience to the ancient ones, or making concessions to those ancient gods in exchange for being permitted their godhood?

(Keltham is also going to be paying attention to any information he runs across about Rovagug, Pharasma, Achaekek, Aroden, the Starstone, or Outer Gods, but does not want to make it very obvious that he's researching those subjects.)

There is plenty of speculation about what the gods care about, but most of it is irresponsible, the better half of it admittedly so. The gods cannot communicate with the Material very well; they can be judged by who they pick as clerics, because that's definitely somehow related to what they fundamentally are as beings, and they can be judged by what their messengers say. Sarenrae, it is said, was an angel before She ascended, and you can go ask a lot of angels what they value in the universe, and that's probably the best you can do. 

Angels say all kinds of things, when you ask them what they value in the universe. 

For every child there is a moment when they realize for the first time that there is something it is like, to be someone else. And that's it, I think, that's the whole thing. There is something it is like to be the most damaged, angry, frightened person in all the universe, there is as much to them as to everything I've ever known or will ever know. When they hurt, they hurt exactly like I do. 

 

In Nirvana, there is a little spring, full of sunlight, where otters play, and dive, and eat clams, and recite poetry, and practice magic, and write stories and read stories and rejoice in one another. I cannot tell you what I value in that little spring, let alone in all the universe; but my answer, so far as I have one, is that if you wanted to understand Good, and could look anywhere, I would start there.

 

Sometimes, two people look at each other, and see that they can trust each other, and see that they can grow in each others' arms, and desire what's best for the other wholly and uncomplicatedly, the way a child who has not yet learned to be ashamed of her desires desires her mother's breast. That is how Shelyn loves us, and the universe ought to be the sort of place that that love would build, were it unrestrained.

 

In every person there is a whole world, and they ought to explore it as far as their legs carry them, and then learn to fly, and then learn to Teleport; that's what Good is. 

 

Good is desiring for another person that things go well for them, by their own lights; growing up is just learning how to do that for every single other person in every moment with every breath without it hurting too much to bear.

Abadar and his followers wish to bring the light of civilization to the wilderness, to help educate all in the benefits of law and properly regulated commerce. He expects his followers to obey all meaningful laws, but not those which are ridiculous, unenforceable, or self-contradictory. He is also a great proponent of peace, as war inevitably leads to the degradation of trade and the stifling of prosperity for the general public. He advocates cautious, careful consideration in all matters, and frowns on impulsiveness, believing that it leads to the encouragement of primitive needs. Abadar discourages dependence on government or any religious institution, believing that wealth and happiness should be achievable by anyone with keen judgement, discipline, and a healthy respect for all sensible, just laws.

Abadar is not one of the gods with a track record of adopting specific pet humans He then makes absurd sacrifices for, though some gods do do that; Aroden seemed to have particularly close and sustained attachments to the greatest among His mortal followers, and a number of them He eventually promoted to demigods or similar before Iomedae, of course, attained full godhood in Her own right. The first time Abadar has bestowed attention, power and mentorship on mortals in some form other than promoting them as His priests or sending them visions is the current situation in Osirion.

During the Age of Creation, Abadar was among the original gods who battled the Rough Beast who sought to destroy Golarion. According to the Windsong Testaments, after Gorum and Torag forged the shell of the Dead Vault, Abadar provided the perfect key and lock for Rovagug's prison, a key so cunningly made that only Asmodeus could turn it.

Abadar is credited with guiding the advancement of humanoid races towards the point where they could establish civilized societies of their own.
 

The general understanding of the Osirion situation is that the end of prophecy made it necessary for Abadar to have the ability to pay mortals to do what He wants, if He's going to get any of His goals achieved. 

The context in which Abadar's best understood to do things people think of as sentimental is the First Vault. The story goes that the first time a mortal made, with their own hands, something of value to them, He was delighted, and when it was lost to the general difficulties of life in that time, He was horrified, and He made the vault so that the work of peoples' hands and minds would never be lost forever. Depending on the source, He may or may not let some people go in and get treasured things once they die.

Abadar strives to maintain agreeable relationships with the other deities, recognizing their influence is conducive to the further advancement of civilized life. In particular, he cultivates alliances with Iomedae, Irori, Shelyn, Asmodeus, and Erastil. Gozreh often opposes Abadar's actions, though Abadar only recognizes Rovagug and Lamashtu as true enemies. The god Aroden respected Abadar and consulted Abadar's The Manual of City-Building to aid in his establishment of the country of Taldor and of the city-state of Absalom. Abadar once opened channels to the archdevil Mephistopheles to cement an alliance based on the archdevil's interest in contracts but these negotiations failed.

No one really understands how the once-human gods relate to the never-human gods. There are vague half-references to Aroden having tried to make some arrangements before He ascended, before giving up and becoming a god. The once-human gods are definitely much weaker than the never-human ones; it's unclear if that's somehow intrinsic to being once-human, or the product of a negotiated agreement or just a temporary state of affairs because the once-human gods are weaker or what. 

Abadar was worshiped by the ancient Azlanti before Earthfall, who focused more on his aspects as a god of cities and gold, rather than of law. As the Azlanti built their first towns and sought others to trade with, he saw his cult spread and taught them to establish cities and seek more wealth. When the Azlanti became an empire, Abadar's faith became popular among merchants and politicians.

Abadar's church turned economy and finances into an academic school. Many temples served as vaults where the church's and the empire's wealth resided, and the government provided significant military and security support to the church. As the empire expanded, Abadar's church founded hundreds of cities and established trade across all colonies, and turned the formation of a stable economy and a network of merchants who could carry goods and currency across the entire empire into an art.

Those sure are some nice testaments from angels.  Are those, by any chance, all angels who used to be human, who are being asked here, or has Keltham misunderstood the nature of angels?  Are there similarly humane-sounding statements from the sort of angels who were the same kind of angel Sarenrae was?

What's the story with Sarenrae having destroyed a city at some point?

Are there any ancient gods who seem to have really loved a mortal, in a way that shows they, like, understood that whole mortal business?

...do the books say what Abadar's alliance with Asmodeus is about?

The book does not say if the angels used to be human! Not all angels used to be human or even used to be any mortal species, but there's not generally understood to be fundamental differences in priorities or outlook between angels that were human and angels that weren't.

....what counts as really loving a mortal? There's, uh, a rumor Desna and Cayden Cailean fucked when He was human and that's why he succeeded at ascending. Erastil is broadly understood to be a giant humanity fanboy who does things like attempt to have a gender on purpose because humans do it and attempting to have a wife on purpose because humans do it and attempting to conceive children on purpose because humans do it. 

After Sarenrae told her followers not to go near the smooth scar left above Rovagug's prison, they either misunderstood her or decided to ignore her, and went to build a city there. Rovagug was able to influence the city and the people in it, and did so, making the people twisted and Evil and working towards his own release. Sarenrae eventually sent Her herald to tell the people they were in terrible peril and needed to leave immediately. They murdered the herald. At that point She smote the city. Her Church generally holds that She didn't have a lot of options, but still regrets and repents of Her decision there. 

Asmodeus generally backs Abadar's work to build cities and civilizations, because humans are capable of more of the kinds of tyranny of interest to Asmodeus when they have social organization more sophisticated than a tiny hunter-gatherer tribe. Abadar trades with Asmodeus, though He does not recommend to His followers that they do so.

Could be, Sarenrae didn't really have other options, and a Rovagug release was imminent and Sarenrae considered that bad or was obligated by other bargains made to prevent the universe's destruction.

Could be, Sarenrae knew that everybody in the doomed city would isekai-theory-of-immortality to somewhere else acceptable, if she smote it in a soul-destroying way, instead of going to an Evil afterlife.

Could be, Sarenrae knew that city would go on generating souls to go to Evil afterlives, until destroyed, and she took the Rovagug issue as an excuse to destroy an Evil city without the Evil gods interfering.

Could be, the angels who were never human don't think in quite the same way about everyone containing a whole world inside them.

Could be, the ancient gods don't have emotional relationships with even the most advanced fancy-headband-wearing 9th-circle wizards, for the same reason Keltham would have trouble falling in love with someone at INT 10.

Could be, the ancient gods just don't feel that way about mortals.

Could be, the thing with Desna and Cayden Cailean is completely true, and she really did love him and not just fuck him.

Could be, Abadar does like mortals and doesn't like Asmodeus; but, Asmodeus not being Zon-Kuthon, Asmodeus is not perfectly inimical to mortals; and Abadar trades with Asmodeus in the gap of that imperfection.

Or it could be that two ancient inhuman gods have a common interest in building cities, because it creates more trade and more tyranny.

...Keltham is about done here, and ready to Teleport back to the Black Dome, if the streets here are no longer safe to wander.

They got her her new trainees very promptly, probably because Keltham is recruiting just as fast in Osirion. She actually hasn't had time to rehearse her speech in front of a mirror, but that's fine, she doesn't need to. 

"Welcome to Project Lawful. The objective of Project Lawful is to use true Asmodeanism, the things Hell is forbidden to teach us, to invent the means to conquer the world. Most of the conquest of the world will be achieved with chemistry, the knowledge of the minute physical details of reality that enables alchemical reactions we didn't previously know how to attain, and with related principles of shareable experimentation. Alchemists conduct plenty of experiments, but alchemy is hardly richer for them; the benefits accrue to the individual, and not to Cheliax, which is their master and which merits the greater share of the benefit from their discovery. Dath ilan figured out how to ensure that experimentation benefits the state and not just the experimenter, and we'll be doing that. 

 In dath ilan, where this chemistry was first discovered, every child is raised from a young age with a grasp of the mathematical foundations of what they do and why. Keltham attempted to teach that to us, out of some kind of conviction that there was where the true secret of dath ilan's wealth and power lay. The mathematical foundations of the universe are certainly interesting, but where they bore fruit was in the areas I have spoken of -- chemistry, and experimental methods for ensuring that Cheliax can prosper by the discoveries of its alchemists. Had we the luxury of all the time in the world, it would fall to us to attempt to coax the other elements of Keltham's teaching to bear fruit.

But we have no such time. Keltham has fled to Osirion, where he will be teaching eager Abadarans all he knows, and warning all the world that Cheliax has cheap spellsilver and knowledge of the principles to invent more from there. The war is coming soon, and if we are unprepared for it we will be annihilated, by the self-righteous forces of Good that loathe any power that does not bow to them. You will not have the luxury of mastering ilanism in a meandering way from all its foundations dath ilan teaches to children; you will master chemistry quickly and cleanly, you will learn the experimental methods, and all the rest of ilanism we will develop as necessary to enable further achievements in industry. The core problem before you is how to make spellsilver cheaper to make, and possible to make without the attention of high level wizards, and how to use alchemy to cause much larger explosions, and to prevent them.

Along the way, some of the tangential bits of ilanism will prove necessary to master, and you'll be trained in them, but we are not trying to do Hell's work. We are trying to defend our lives, our souls, and our homeland, and if Asmodeus wills it we'll learn more about the deep true nature of the world along the way, because we require it for His service."

"So, like, the part where the Queen told us to produce new ilani and scale up manufacturing, we're all going to pretend we haven't heard that?  Because if we did hear the Queen's priorities, what she thinks Cheliax needs next, and then ignored those because they'd be inconvenient, that'd be, you know, impolite.  Just trying to grasp what story we're supposed to be coordinating around, if Abrogail Thrune drops by and asks what we're doing."

Asmodia asks it of Avaricia at a time when only the old members of Project Lawful are present; Asmodia is not doing anything that could be interpreted as overt sabotage of Avaricia while Avaricia still seems to be overtly working for Cheliax.

"I don't think that dath ilan arrived in their present state, in the first place, by sitting in their libraries contemplating the nature of reason. They tried to build things. They developed ilanism in the course of trying to achieve things. Having done so, they distilled it into some form you could teach children, but we don't have the starting point they distilled from, and we don't have much time, so it's idiocy, to try to do this in the manner that the fully developed dath ilani Civilization did it. Instead, we'll have to do it the way they invented it in the first place, which is in the course of trying to solve real problems. 

Should Her Imperial Majestrix stop by to see what progress we're making, it is my hope to report to her that we've made progress both on chemistry and on identification of which elements of ilanism are necessary first, which in their absence hold people back in useful invention and industry, and which come much later or are, perhaps, a distraction dath ilan installed for some reason other than their producing high-achieving people. I anticipate being able to make such a report despite the fact that the bulk of Project resources are being expended by you on nothing in particular, a decision which I would not dare to presume is the product of deliberate treason except for how you keep saying that you're a traitor and want us to lose."

Asmodia restrains the impulse to tell Avaricia everything she's actually doing wrong, like, if Avaricia was actually trying that, she should be giving her new minions freer rein, telling them to write down in advance how they planned to think about things methodologically, and seeing which of them if any produced results that way.  Avaricia has, in fact, grasped the idea of writing down possible experiments and predictions, and letting her underlings propose those; to Asmodia's observation she hasn't taken it to the meta-level.

But this, indeed, Asmodia does not say.  Asmodia does not, in fact, want Cheliax to win, but Asmodia suspects that part is not mainly down to her own choices, at this point.  However, Asmodia definitely doesn't want Avaricia to win.

"Yep, I want Cheliax to lose, but I also know that it's in my best interests to be able to honestly testify that I did my best work at any point up until Keltham comes back for us.  And the fact that I'm being honest with myself about that, lets me figure out what actually is in Cheliax's interests.  That's why Sevar prefers it that way.  Avaricia's thoughts twist and turn until whatever's best for herself is sincerely believed by her to be what's best for Cheliax.  She can't choose not to betray Cheliax and her superiors; she doesn't have an internal option that looks like that, because she doesn't have internal labels on the traitorous parts."

"Hence the saying:  Better a bad slave than a muddled one."

"Saying it doesn't make it a saying. And declaring that you're honest with yourself doesn't make you so. I could keep going in this vein; you have a habit of declaring things and then pretending they're true. But if they are, then I suppose all the valuable insights will come out of your team, and your methods adopted more widely; and if, as I suspect, you're deluding yourself and blowing hot air and trying to run an organization in such a disorganized fashion it wouldn't work even among ilani, well, then it'll be good someone tried doing something different from that."

"Asserting lots of things with higher Splendour doesn't make them true either, even if you point to the other person dramatically and declare 'declaring things doesn't make them true' in every other sentence.  It's a cutting accusation you can level just as easily at true declarations as false declarations, making it no evidence under the Law of Probability, all Splendour and no Validity.  For me to argue in such a way, of course, would be betraying Cheliax by throwing 'entropy' and random noise into our deliberations.  As a bad slave, rather than a muddled one, I have the option of choosing not to do that, you see."

"Well, just keep in mind, neither the Most High nor the Queen will be fooled by the part where you tackled a lot of easy problems using methodology that Keltham already explained to you and afterwards made out like you're a genius.  Though I suppose all that Splendour has to be good for something, like selling whatever easy results you get as being incredibly difficult ones.  Yes yes, my declaring this indeed does not make it so; nor will whatever you declare in response be true only because you say it."

Asmodia has a hidden card here; she does not know any details of the Shadow Project already working to develop reserved Chelish advantages, but Asmodia knows that it exists.  Whatever Avaricia claims to be the results of her own genius and methods will be inevitably surprise-compared to however far the Shadow Project gets in equivalent time.  Avaricia will be compared to a more rigorous metric of controlled experiment than she is expecting, and that little internal twist that leads her to oversell her results will not, in fact, impress her superiors.

As for the Sevar loyalists, Asmodia is indeed not giving much in the way of orders, which she supposes looks to old-school Asmodeans like 'nothing being done'.  But Asmodia has identified better roads as the actual next key step in Chelish economic progress - because roads enable more surviving children to go into more towns, instead of requiring towns to be higher density until more people get sick; and roads allow professional specialists to travel to more places.  Asmodia is trying to figure out cheaper ways of roadbuilding despite Keltham not having described any such, which is, in fact, a more difficult task than anything the Project or Shadow Project has ever tried before.  And Willa Shilira has her own ideas and her own newly recruited minions taking orders from her; and the two of them have written down in advance their disagreements about methodology; and the ilani are, unlike some Asmodeans, actively helping one another and not just obeying orders.

"You miss one thing, traitor, probably because being a traitor you can't even think of it. I'm not trying to impress my superiors. I am trying to preserve my country. I am not playing for a pat on the head and a neighboring county; if we don't beat Keltham, we all die. 

Also, roads are a stupid project, because Osirion's across the fucking sea, you fucking moron, and unless we win that the long term doesn't matter." This seems like a good place to depart with the rhetorical high ground, so she'll do that.

"Gonna be hard to win that using a slightly more advanced version of our ilani eight-year-old chemistry.  What with Keltham just destroying the entire country if it starts a war, using the actually dangerous knowledge that real ilani have.  The way, you know, Keltham said under truthspell that he would.  You may forget that fact because it's not convenient to you, but I guarantee the Queen and Grand High Priestess think about it very regularly."

Departing in the middle of the argument may mean you can feel like you won, because the other person doesn't get to fire back at you.  It doesn't actually stop somebody from articulating the real counterargument in front of an audience, after you've left and can't argue back.

This sure is an interesting confrontation for the fate of Cheliax!  Maybe Cheliax's soul too!

Obviously, in a case like this, the right thing for a Security to do is stay out of it and just do their jobs, so as to make it a fair contest won by the side with better research methods harass whichever side they think deserves to lose!

Unless you're a Sevar loyalist, of course, in which case you know Sevar wouldn't approve of that sort of thing.

...this does create a certain unfortunate asymmetry, in a Project which now has a number of incredibly unsavory sex offenders extremely reliable Asmodeans on its enormous Security roster.