"I'm not sure why you don't want him to get a look at you, but sure, I guess writing's sort of like an etiquette waiver, you could go through - hm, not his wives, his husband maybe or one of the advisors."

"I actually think it'd be really valuable for you to meet and speak to the Pharaoh. The fact a Chelish person tried to warn you off it makes me think more strongly it's a good idea, honestly. Do you have a price in mind to be comfortable speaking to him directly?"

"Asmodia stated under Osirion-supervised truthspell that she wasn't loyal to Cheliax.  And I do not want my mind read anymore.  I am happy to communicate with people in ways that don't result in my private state of mind being revealed.  We can pass each other notes under a doorframe."

"I don't know what Asmodia's deal is but I do not think she was acting in your sincere best interests when she claimed to you that the Pharaoh has 'sufficiently good augmented reading-people skills that it verges on Detect Thoughts'. He's hard to lie to even without Abadar's Truthtelling up, but I think there's a pretty dramatic difference, morally and pragmatically, between 'can generally notice being lied to/misled' and 'has effectively Detect Thoughts'. Lots of people in Cheliax also have spectacular Sense Motive. 

If not for my concern that Cheliax told Asmodia this for some reason, or that whatever actor she serves in this drama doesn't share our interests, I wouldn't really have any concerns about you communicating with the pharaoh only in writing, though, so we can start with that."

"All right.  And I probably should get started on talking to people."

"I did not really have this situation in mind when I built my contract with Cheliax but I did put in provisions related to us parting ways.  They need to account for the spellsilver they refine as income to the Project, they need to account for the headbands they build as if they were being sold to the Chelish government, and the defense against them understating that price is that I can buy those same goods from them at the price they state.  Modulo various other provisions, they can always keep at least half of it for themselves, they can package up goods and price the package to prevent me from adversarially sniping fairly priced goods that were key to a larger supply chain, etcetera etcetera."

"The point being, unless there's provisions in there with effects I do not understand, as your own legal experts might know about, either Cheliax has to cause a lot of income to accrue to the Project in terms of selling themselves spellsilver and headbands, some of which I can withdraw for myself via the Project repurchasing some of my shares, or they may try underpricing them, and in that case we come in and buy half of it from them.  I'm trying to think of whether I'm sufficiently mad at them that we'd come in and buy half of their production even if they do fairly price it to the Project, just to deny those resources to Cheliax.  But I'd just as soon let them make the first asshole move on Project contract treatment, so that I can tear into them using other provisions with a clear conscience."

"Assuming, of course, that Carissa Sevar does not successfully model my thinking that way."

"It doesn't really seem like the sort of thing that can wait or that requires me to be at full brainpower."

"That makes sense. We can get you some lawyers with expertise with Cheliax to look at the contract in more detail now that they can ask you questions, and figure out how they might try cheating you."

"How did you already have a copy of - because Abadar.  Right.  Well, if your lawyers didn't catch anything on a first pass that substantially ups my probability that we can get some mileage here."

"Merenre, I'm sorry to keep pushing on this, but I need to know my next step for being with people in a specific place and time to plot the next iteration of... Project Lawful Neutral?  If I'm not supposed to talk to you about that, then I need to know who to talk to and where to find them.  I didn't push like this in some conversations in Cheliax, and that, in retrospect, was an error."

"The next step is asking Ione, Nefreti's representatives, and the representatives of the allied countries that are sending people here to learn from Ione when they can make it here for an emergency meeting. Many of them will need to arrange a teleport, but I'd expect we can plan something for tomorrow."

"Are all of those allied representatives just - putting themselves into the presence of the Pharaoh's Sense Motive?  Do they have reading-blocking skills or do they just not care?"

"He mostly just uses this ability to give people good presents. And I'm pretty sure it's still my brother and not the pharaoh coaching Merenre on what to get me for my birthday, so he doesn't even do that obsessively."

"Sorry, I still have trouble reading Osirian intonations.  Fe-Anar, that was a joke not a literally true statement right?"

"No, that's true, measuring by instances of use he mostly uses his uncanny people skill to give out presents.  And matchmake. See, if you have a reputation for being impossible to lie to, then people mostly don't try."

"...that's really not what I would expect to be true about somebody running a country, the way that countries work in Golarion.  I would expect the Pharaoh to be meeting with representatives of foreign countries and determining their intentions.  Or is the Pharaoh just not - the analogue of the Chief Executive of Civilization, but more like - the old retired executive who serves as an advisor to somebody else?"

"There's a ruling council for day to day management of the country, but He absolutely does receive representatives of foreign countries, and use His impressive sensibilities to pick out thoughtful and sometimes pointed presents for them."

"I too think he should get a real job.[Kind of serious but not at all reflecting a consensus position.]"

"Many people in Golarion have good Sense Motive. It is very usual to go out of your way to avoid being around them if you are a random person who doesn't want to be caught up in important doings, but no one would send a diplomatic representative who felt uncomfortable being seen by someone with particularly good Sense Motive."

"Problem being, I am not a 'diplomatic' representative, and I have not learned whatever defenses they have."

"Is the trans-regional meeting to pull together a new Project a matter for the management committee, or one where I need to worry about staying out of totally-not-mindreading range of the Pharaoh?"

"If you think this is a matter of such overriding importance that never mind whether we'll default on our debts in six months we should pour everything we have into it, then the Pharaoh will need to be present."

"I hadn't particularly modeled that as a live option for clerics of Abadar.  Does Abadar not just immediately decleric you if you borrow money you're not planning to pay back?"

"I imagine He would. Also it'd cause immense longlasting harm to the financial system and to Osirion, and a lot of people would starve to death. That's why the Pharaoh needs to be in the room for discussions about taking emergency measures - because no one else has the right to weigh those tradeoffs."

"I will see what I can do about avoiding tradeoffs like that, and would mostly expect to succeed if other countries in Golarion are also taking this at all seriously.  Though it won't particularly help credibility, or so I imagine, if I have to hide behind a door and pass notes around - are the representatives likely to have high Sense Motive?  Is there no standard defense against this thing?"

"The standard defense against people having good Sense Motive is to be good at concealing your facial expressions. The pharaoh could promise not to take any actions based off inferences He makes from looking at you?"

"I'd buy that from Iomedae.  I'd buy that from a Keeper.  If the Pharaoh is such that he has that for sale, I'm frankly impressed."

"He's an aspect of Abadar. That's the whole point of everything we're doing, as this country, to be able to wield Law like the gods do while not being subject to the constraints the gods are."

"How does the aspect thing work, exactly?  Did Abadar overwrite part of the pharaoh with better math the way Nethys is said to accidentally overwrite people?  Because I thought that the whole point of this was that my Civilization knew things about Law that Abadar otherwise had no way of communicating.  Is the pharaoh, like, 10% made out of Abadar, 1%, does he have a particular new brain organ that does a thing..."